Clubbed - Issue 9 - Winter 2001 (2001)(South Essex Amiga Link)(GB)

23 Pages·2001·3.9 MB·English

IIssssuuee 99,, WWiinntteerr 22000011
££33..5500
Read our full review
We play the new
PPC/Warp3D Version
NEWS NEWS
Contents Editorial Update
Clubbed.info
Clubbed is published quarterly by South
News Essex Amiga Link. For subscription details
please contact us at the address below or
SEAL Update......................3 Meetings Future Meetings
Welcome to the ninth issue of visit our website.
World of Amiga South East.4 Editor: Robert Williams
Clubbed, if everything has It has to be said that things have been Once the show is over we aim to
Design: Robert Williams
Features gone to plan you could well fairly quiet at SEAL meetings over the revitalise SEAL meetings, hopefully this Contributors: Elliott Bird
be reading this just before the World of last few months, we think there are will be aided by the release of new hard- Mick Sutton
Reader Opinion...................10 Amiga South East show which we’re all several reasons for this. Firstly it has ware and software at around the same Kevin Twyman
Payback PPC Preview........11 working hard preparing for as I write. been the summer when many people time. So SEAL members, now is the Jamie Winter
are on holiday or at least would rather time to be thinking about topics you Proof Reading: Sharon Sutton
DTP Explained....................12 I’m sure regular readers won’t fail to
be outside than sitting in front of a com- would like to see covered at future Cover Art: Roy Burton
DTP Utilities........................17 spot that this issue is on time for a
puter. Secondly it has been a quiet time meetings and if you could contribute in Contact Us
change! I would like to thank all the con-
Mediator Multimedia CD.....24 in the Amiga market as a whole, there is any way to make them more interesting.
tributors to this issue, and everyone who If you have any queries suggestions or
a great feeling of “wait and see” with
Reviews lent a hand in getting it finished. Special One idea we do have is a “bring and buy want to contact us for any reason please
several big developments on the use one of the following:
thanks should go to Mick Sutton who sale” where members can bring along
Metaview.............................20 horizon. Finally several of SEAL’s EMail: [email protected]
spent a lot of his evenings helping me any kit they want to sell and can also
movers and shakers have been very
ArtEffect Plugins Collection 22 with the layout, in addition to writing buy from other members, we had one of WWW: http://www.seal-amiga.co.uk/
busy with the forth coming WoASE show
Epson Stylus Photo 790.....26 several articles. these in SEAL’s first year and it was a Post: Clubbed, 26 Wincoat Drive,
which has also meant that this issue of BENFLEET, Essex, SS7 5AH,
success. Also SEAL has received
Memory Card Reader.........27 The next few months look like being a Clubbed has greater urgency than usual ENGLAND.
several donations of hardware and soft-
PhotoScope........................28 time of significant changes for Amiga we’ve had to look for a new printer for too. Telephone:[phone]
ware in the last year and those items
users, several major products, from this and future issues. (19:00 - 22:00 UK time only please)
Shogo.................................29 All that said we have had some interest- which are not needed for the club
Amiga and others are expected in this Only Amiga Made it Possible
PD Paradise........................32 Before I go into the ramifications of this I ing meetings, bizarrely most featuring machines will be available for sale at
time frame. There is the Amiga One and
would like to thank Jeff for all the hard CyberVision 64/3D graphics cards! We this meeting, all contributions going to Clubbed is designed and laid out using:
Archive Utilities...................40 OS4, then there are the other solutions
work he’s put into getting Clubbed had a go at fitting an AMon automatic club funds. Hardware:
based on OS 4 from Elbox, Matay and
Support printed, including putting up with my last monitor switch to Alf Whitfield’s Amiga 3000
anyone else who chooses to take up a SEAL on the ‘net CyberStorm PPC/060
minute phone calls of... “don’t print it yet, CV64/3D. Next Elliott Bird asked for
Top Tips..............................34 license. MorphOS, probably best CyberVision PPC
I’ve spotted a major typo!” (oh yes folks, some help setting up a CV64/3D in his
described as an Amiga compatible PPC SEAL has several, rather under used, 128Mb RAM, about 8Gb HDD space.
DTP Tutorial........................36 Issue 7’s cover very nearly referred to A4000, he had installed the card under
OS, with the BPlan Pegasos mother- resources available on the Internet, with Software:
Back to Basics Archiving ...39 the little known prehistoric era the Picasso 96 but it was very unstable.
board will probably be shown to the more and more members getting on line Amiga OS 3.9 by Amiga
“Scantasic” instead of “Scantastic”!). This turned out to be a hardware incom-
IRC Tutorial.........................41 public for the first time at a show in I think it’s time to give them a bit of a PageStream 4 by Softlogik
Cologne, Germany in mid November. Everyone at Clubbed and I’m sure all patibility between early DCE manufac- plug. There are several mailing lists ImageFX 4 by Nova Design
our readers wish Jeff the very best of tured CV64/3Ds and Zorro II (see Top Photogenics 5 by Paul Nolan
Finally we have the Amiga OS XL x86 which use the Yahoo Groups service,
Next Issue...........................43 luck in finding a new job. Tips on page 38 for more details). Then Final Writer 5 by Softwood
Gallery................................44 emulation package from H&P, which Steve Willis brought along a Power these allow anyone with EMail to easily Ghostscript 6.50 from Aladdin Enterprises
gives Amiga users yet another option! From our initial enquires with local prin- receive information about the club. Seal-
Tower, Z4 bus board and, you’ve There are also some essential utilities we
From a Clubbed point of view we’d like ters it seems that our printing costs are guessed it, a CyberVision 64/3D making announce is for club related announ- couldn’t live without: Directory Opus 5,
going to increase considerably, probably cements and is a very low traffic list, it SGrab, MCP, Turbo Print 7, MakeCD.
e to hear your opinions on these develop- him the latest SEAL member to ex-
Do The t ments, and which products, if any, you nearly doubling in fact. Because perience the wonders of high resolution, would be great if all members with EMail Our thanks to the creators of this and all
Clubbed is non profit making there is no could join this list as it makes sending the other great Amiga software out there.
i choose to buy when they are released. high colour fast screens.
r way we can absorb this increase. announcements much easier. To join the Clubbed is entirely created on the Amiga,
W We can then start thinking about the fu-
Therefore we have had to make a But not everything revolved around the list, which is free, simply send a blank no other machines are used at any stage of
ture direction of the magazine, although decision as to how to continue without Phase 5 designed card, new member EMail to: seal-announce-subscribe the design or layout process.
that will also depend on the choices
making a loss on every issue sold. As Philip Beasley had trouble with booting @yahoogroups.com Seal-talk is an in-
Thing made by our contributors.
we need to have the magazine printed in his A4000, when we opened it up at the teractive list for members to communi- Legalese
Along with the big changes in the Amiga time for World of Amiga South East (ex- meeting it not only had some interesting cate outside meetings, to join send a The views expressed in this magazine are those
world we have had quite an eventful actly four weeks away as I type this) we hardware (a time base corrector for blank Email to: of the author of each piece, they do not
We’d like to make Clubbed more “in- necessarily reflect the views of the editor, other
month here at Clubbed. Currently the have decided that we must put up the video work and a GVP ‘040 accelerator) [email protected].
contributors or SEAL.
teractive” so we need your input! magazine is printed for us by SEAL price of the magazine in time for the but it also showed just how much dust Then you can post your Amiga problems
Please Note: Clubbed is produced by SEAL
Got a question you’d like answered member Jeff Martin who works in the show. The new price is £3.50 per issue can collect in a machine that hasn’t and comments to everyone belonging to members in their spare time, while we will always
or an opinion you’d like to share? printing department of a large insurance with UK subscriptions at £14.00, current been opened for six years. We also the group by sending one EMail to: strive to produce the magazine on time and
include all the advertised contents this is not
Write to us and we’ll include it in a company. This means we get Clubbed subscriptions will not be effected, but found a leaky battery, as mentioned in [email protected]. always possible due to other commitments. The
letters page. printed at cost price and in the excellent renewals from this issue will be at the the Top Tips section of issue eight. Sam price you pay for Clubbed covers our costs and
SEAL also has an IRC (Internet Relay
quality you saw in issues three to eight new price. We hope people will feel the Byford is another member with an inter- nothing more, we don’t make a profit from it.
Got a tip for other readers or even an (and the second print run of issues one magazine is worth it and we will do our esting Amiga, his A4000 is in a Power Chat) channel on Arcnet called #SEAL, If you wish to contact a contributor please send
article up your sleeve? Send it in and here you can chat with other members your message to one of the addresses above and
you could very well see your name in afonrdm tewdo u).s U thnafot rtthuen aptreinlyti nJge fdf ehpaas ritnm-ent is best to make it good value for money. Tboowaredr, whieth’s tjhues tn wewai tEinlgb ofxo rP tCheI bMuesd iator in real time, for more information on IRC wAme iwgiall ipsa as sre igt iosnte.red trademark and the Amiga
print. closing at Christmas and more impor- Well that’s about it from me, enjoy the PCI logic to arrive so he can use those see Elliott Bird’s tutorial on page 41. logo, AmigaDOS, Amiga Kickstart, Amiga
magazine and see you at World of There are full details of all SEAL’s Workbench, Autoconfig, Bridgeboard, and
Got a suggestion or comment on the tantly for us the machine used to print Amiga South East! exciting and inexpensive expansions. Internet activities on the website at: Powered by Amiga are trademarks of AMIGA Inc.
magazine? Let us know and we’ll try the Clubbed covers has broken down All other trademarks mentioned are the property
and make Clubbed better for you. and probably won’t be fixed. Therefore Robert Williams www.seal-amiga.co.uk of their respective owners.
2 CLUBBED - Issue 9 Winter 2001 3
NEWS NEWS
World of Amiga South East x86 New Look
AmigaOS on
Aminet
In the Amiwest update sheet included Amiga drivers to support your hardware,
with issue 8 of Clubbed we were for example if you want to print on a The main Aminet website has been
surprised to find that two, ostensibly modern inkjet you would still need given a make over, the site is still simple
similar Amiga Emulators were being TurboPrint. From what has been said and quick to load (if anything I think the
developed in tandem. One was Using Amithlon will be very much like one graphic is smaller than before) but
Amithlon, developed by Harald Frank using a very fast 68k Amiga, it will still now all the common functions are easily
and Bernd Meyer, which was demon- have the limitations of an Amiga such as available on the main page. Straight
away you can see the list of the last
strated by Bill McEwen at Amiwest and limited driver support, but on the other
the other, previewed in Amiga Active hand it you like your Amiga driver soft- week’s uploads and the search function
issue 23 turned out to be AmigaXL from ware for scanning, printing, CD writing is in the side bar along with direct links
Haage and Partner. etc. you should be able to continue to the top level directories.
using it, just much faster. At the moment the new look only seems
Similarities
AmigaXL is said to make much more to be available on the US site at:
Both emulators run on a host OS, Linux use of the underlying QNX operating http://us.aminet.net/pub/aminet/
for Amithlon and QNX for AmigaXL, but system, for example it uses QNX printer
hide the fact from the user. They are drivers and network access is via the
both derived from UAE although QNX TCP/IP stack. From what
Amithlon’s developers say has been said it doesn’t
almost every aspect has seem possible to access
been rewritten, we don’t the various interfaces of
know yet how much of the PC as Amiga devices
UAE remains in AmigaXL from AmigaXL, the FAQ
although H&P do say it states that several ap-
uses a “modified and highly plications requiring device
accelerated 68k emulator”. level access to interfaces (for
Another common factor between example CD burning and scan-
the two is their claimed speed, on a ning) will not work under the emula-
fast x86 PC speeds of up to 20 times tion. On the plus side being more reliant Mediator
‘060 have been quoted, which is quite on the host OS means that AmigaXL
amazing! Finally both will read your ex- can offer features like USB support and
isting Amiga hard disks allowing easy even access to QNX programs like Fast
transfer of programs and data. With both Opera and Voyager web browsers (com-
emulators offering such similar facilities plete with SSL, Macromedia Flash,
and Amiga and H&P being partners in MPEG, RealAudio, JavaScript and Java-
Ethernet
various developments it seemed clear support) within the emulation.
they would have to come to some sort of
From the FAQ it seems that AmigaXL
agreement. The end result is that Haage Elbox has announced new drivers for
will also have some what better support
Preparations for the World of 7 Cloanto Apart from the bar other highlights of the and Partner will publish both emulators for programs using the Amiga chipset Ethernet cards based on the Realtek
Amiga South East have been 8-14 Eyetech show will be several presentations in- in a package called AmigaOS XL which than Amithlon which is purely for pro- RTL8139 chipset, which supports
going very well, we now have a 15-16 Formatt Home Computing cluding one from Fleecy Moss of Amiga includes all the necessary licences, grams that run on a graphics card. 10MBit/s and 100MB/s operation, this
list of exhibitors and a floor plan as you 17 100% Amiga and several games tournaments. Keep neither will be available separately. However with a fast PC there is no will be the first 100MB card available for
can see here. In addition to the main 18 SEAL an eye on the show website for further Differences reason why one couldn’t run UAE within the Amiga. The new drivers are avail-
hall, the venue boasts a bar which will 19 ANT details and a time table of presentations. either of them to support older software. able for Elbox’s Mediator range of PCI
be staffed throughout the show and a 20 Kickstart Until the package is released or at least bus boards and will also require the user
smaller hall that will be used as a café 21 ASA The show is taking place on Saturday demonstrated it is hard to know how the The AmigaOS XL package with both to own the recently released Mediator
and presentation area. 22 Elbox the 3rd of November 2001 at: emulators will compare in performance emulators, licensed OS 3.9, 3.1 ROM Multimedia CD (see our preview on
23-24 Mediator Support Poplars Hall, and the “feel” of their emulation. From image, QNX and Picasso 96 will cost page 24 for further details). The
This is the current list of exhibitors, as 25-27 Virtual Programing Poplar Drive, the specifications and other information 299DM which is about £100. For loads RTL8139 is used on many PCI Ethernet
usual with these things there will and Amiga Active Hutton, released so far it seems that the main more information visit Haage and cards and tends to be very economically
probably be some minor changes by the 28-30 Weird Science Brentwood, difference between them is how much Partner’s AmigaOS XL web site at: priced, you should be able to find a
day of the show but this is what to ex- 31-33 Stellar Dreams Essex, CM13 1YU. use they make of the services offered by http://amigaosxl.haage-partner.de/ compatible card for well under £20.
pect:
34 Hyperion Games Area It will run from 12:00 until 17:00. If you the host OS. Note: The detailed information is under Mediator boards and the MMCD are dis-
1-2 Kicksoft 35 Gloucestershire Amiga Group haven’t bought your tickets already they the “Products” link at the top of the tributed in the UK by Power Computing,
Amithlon seems to make very little use
3 Pagan Games We also have an assurance from Haage will be available on the door at just of its Linux base, it uses Linux drivers to page. for further details visit:
4 HAUG and Blackpool and Partner that they will be there to £3.50 each. Full details including direc- access basic motherboard resources The UK distributor for the Package is http://www.powerc.com
user groups demonstrate the Amiga OS XL package tions from the M25 and on public (mouse, keyboard, IDE and SCSI con- Virtual Programming: or telephone them on [phone].
5 To Be Announced transport are on the show website:
6 Amiga but we don’t know exactly what form trollers etc.) and to initialise graphics http://www.vpltd.com Elbox have a website at:
their attendance will take yet. http://www.worldofamiga.com cards. From that point on you must have [phone] http://www.elbox.com
4 CLUBBED - Issue 9 Winter 2001 5
NEWS NEWS
MorphOS GREX Bites Back Earth Ten
In the last few weeks DCE have Years On
announced a host of new drivers for PCI
DV Editing
cards installed on their GREX family of
PCI expansion boards. At the time of E.P.I.C. Interactive have announced that
writing none of these new drivers have they will be publishing a port of Earth
been released. Here is a run down of 2150: Escape from the Blue Planet, the
The GREX
the drivers being developed and some follow up to Earth 2140 reviewed last
Titan Computer have released some To run Motion Studio you will 4000D Replaces the
other GREX related news. issue, they plan to release a Mac ver-
specifications and screen shots of their need a computer with a A4000’s daughter board.
sion and then one for MorphOS running
new non-linear digital video editing PowerPC G3 running at
USB STB and 3Dfx . on bplan Pegasos hardware. Like Earth
package Motion Studio. Titan are the 400Mhz, firewire ports and
2140, 2150 is a real time strategy game
publishers with the product being devel- MorphOS 1.0. Titan ore ob- Drivers for Universal Serial Bus PCI To run Visionary you will need
but unlike it’s predecessor it features a
oped by Motion Studios, the people be- viously aiming this product at cards will enable many common, low CyberGraphX running on a PCI card in
true 3D environment. The game was
hind the Elastic Dreams and Fantastic computers based on the cost peripherals to be connected, initially your GREX. No release date has been
very popular in the PC world, in fact
Dreams image manipulation packages. bplan Pegasos motherboard Human Interface Devices (HIDs) such set but it is expected to be available
there has already been a sequel, The
Like those two titles Motion Studio which is expected to be as keyboards and mice will be sup- some time in October, probably coincid-
Moon Project and yet another E2150:
features a very flash non-standard user shown to the public running ported and according to an interview ing with the new GREX board for the
Lost Souls is about to be released.
interface which you can see in this MorphOS later this year. In with the developer “many other devices A4000 desktop.
E.P.I.C. state that ports of these games
screen shot. the mean time, to whet your will soon follow of course”. There are
appetite take a look at the two standards used by USB controllers Other GREX News will follow at a later date.
Motion Studio is designed for MorphOS
titan website: (such as those found on PCI cards), For further details visit the E.P.I.C.
and supports the bplan Pegasos According to DCE the second model in
OHCI and UHCI currently the driver sup- Interactive website is at:
motherboard, using its Firewire connec- http://www.titan- the GREX family of PCI bus boards has
ports UHCI and has been tested with a http://www.epic-interactive.com
tion to load Digital Video (for example computer.com/ now entered production. The GREX
card based on the VIA 83C572 con-
from a digital camcorder). 40 video motionstudio 4000D is a replacement for the A4000 The official Earth 2150 site is:
troller, OHCI support is planner for the
effects are included and most of them desktop’s Zorro daughter board and http://www.earth2150.com
final release.
are performed in real-time on a system provides four PCI slots, four Zorro slots
which meets the minimum AMP Plays TV Cards and one video slot. Unlike the other Hyperion Spread
specifications. There is also full sound options that will fit a 4000 (Matay’s
the Curse
support with over 20 sound effects in- Visionary is a new Prometheus and Elbox’s Mediator Z3
cluding echo, fades and decrackle. driver system for and Mediator 4000) the GREX will fit
In the last issue of Clubbed we reported
Plugins are supported so additional DVD! TV cards based on properly in the standard A4000 desktop
that Hyperion had released Voodoo 3
effects can be easily added. Finished the popular case. A CyberStorm MkIII or PPC is
Warp3D drivers for Matay’s Prometheus
projects can be saved in common Booktree 878, 879 required because the GREX plugs
PCI board enabling Warp3D ap-
Quicktime and AVI formats and we and 848 chipsets directly into the local bus slot of these
plications, in particular games such as
assume back to a DV recorder. with Microtune or accelerators.
Shogo and Heretic II to take advantage
Philips tuner chips
A new version of AmiDog’s Movie Player In addition to the Visionary TV card of the Voodoo 3’s hardware 3D ac-
Blittersoft has been released with a major new fea- are supported. drivers DCE have also announced that celeration. Since then drivers for DCE’s
This encompas-
ture, it can now play DVD movies, the drivers for three other PCI cards will GRex board have been released and
ses many cards
Long standing UK Amiga hardware and first utility on the Amiga to do so! AMP soon be available for GREX users. The Hyperion have signed a deal with Elbox
from different
software dealer Blittersoft has been version 2 (not to be confused with first is for 100MBit Ethernet cards based to produce Mediator compatible drivers.
manufacturers,
bought by Virtual Programming, a rela- Amiga AMP the MPEG audio player) is a on the popular and inexpensive Realtek As we go to press Elbox have
the Vision Factory
tively new company developing, PPC only movie player using WarpUP, in RTL8139C chipset. Two sound cards will announced that the Mediator drivers are
site already lists
amongst other things, software for Tao’s addition to DVD it also supports video also be supported with AHI drivers, the now available and that they also support
thirteen different
Elate platform that forms the basis for CDs and MPEG video files. DVD Terratec128i and 512i, Terratec is a the Voodoo 4 4500 and Voodoo 5 5500.
cards which have
the AmigaDE. One of VP’s directors is playback requires a fast PPC card and a German company and from what I can However Ben Yoris or Hyperion has
been tested and found
Mark Hinton, the publisher of Amiga DVD-ROM drive attached to a fast inter- £10 in cash to the author, buy on-line see both these cards are affordable at stated “We did do Voodoo 3 drivers for
to be compatible. The developers also
Active and he is joined by Paul Lesurf of face, the author recommends a SCSI and get the keyfile EMailed to you around £25 and £50 respectively. In the them but no Voodoo 4/5. It’s a remote
say that Visionary is designed to be
Blittersoft. drive on a DMA controller. For owners of through regnet for 18USD or buy it on Visionary screen shot you can also see possibility that these Voodoo 3 drivers
easily expanded to support more chip-
slower PPC cards there is a low resolu- CD from Kicksoft for £18. the sound mixer utility for these cards. work on a Voodo 4/5 but...we have no
Virtual Programming say that they in- tion which decodes the video at half the sets and tuners where developer way of testing or knowing this.” We will
tend to support both the classic Amiga width and height approximately doubling The program can be used for 30 days documentation is available. http://www.vgr.com, the official Vision wait with interest to see exactly what is
and new Amiga markets and will con- playback speed. before registering, so you can download Visionary features a “skinnable” user Factory site is an excellent source of going on!
tinue to support Blittersoft’s existing cus- the latest version from: news on the GREX, Visionary and
interface which allows the user to design
tomers. You can find Blittersoft’s range Although AMP is a command line pro- http://www.amidog.com matters graphics card related. Hyperion are at:
their own GUI, from the screen shots
gram it is supplied with an attractive MUI and see what you think. http://www.hyperion-entertainment.com
of classic Amiga products on the VP
provided it seems to be very flexible, http://www.dcecom.de also has some
GUI allowing you to easily change its
website and development is set to con- You can order from Kicksoft at: with the option to reposition the interesting product information. On their site you can register and then
options and basic controls are provided
tinue. http://www.kicksoft.co.uk elements of the GUI, as well as chang- download the latest version of Warp3D
in the playback window to seek to a
Further details can be found on the new position in the movie and to pause and Details of the other registration options ing the graphics. It supports Visual from the download area.
Virtual Programming website at: restart. There are several options to get are in the AMP documentation. Reality skins which are supplied with TV
http://www.vpltd.com a registered copy of AMP, you can send tuner cards from companies including
6 CLUBBED - Issue 9 Winter 2001 7
NEWS FEATURES
While compiling the news for Perfect Paint 2.7 MUIBase
TurboPrint
this issue we noticed several
software packages that had
been given a minor update, although Georges Halvadjian has been at it MUIBase is a powerful shareware rela-
these updates might not normally make 7.20 again, gradually improving the freeware tional database with, you’ve guessed it,
the Clubbed news page we thought Perfect Paint making it a really com- a MUI interface. It supports multiple
these programs were so good or inter- prehensive package, particularly for tables with an unlimited number of
esting that they were worth mentioning.
detailed work like game and web records which can be dynamically
A new version of Isreesoft’s essential graphics. Here are some of the useful loaded from RAM. A wide selection of
ProStation print enhancement system is now avail- features which have been added since field types are allowed including
able, 7.20, like the earlier 7.10 release is we last looked at Perfect Paint way back datatypes fields for displaying images
a pure driver upgrade, keeping in version 2.4: and other file types. Other features in-
Audio Turboprint up to date with the new prin- clude a query editor and powerful
ters that are constantly released. As • A new bridge tool that enables you to search, sort and filter functions.
Italian developer Audio Labs has made there are no functional upgrades you Epson Stylus Photo 750, 790, 870, exchange pictures, brushes, palettes supplied and users are asked to con-
don’t need to upgrade unless you have 890, 1200, 1270, 1290 with full photo ink and animations with any program with The latest version, 1.6, adds an AREXX
several announcements regarding their tribute other languages.
one of the newly supported printers. support an AREXX port, settings files are interface (which compliments the built in
professional audio software ProStation
HP DeskJet 810, 812, 815, 830, 832, provided for most common graphics • Improved gradients which can now programming language), enhancements
Audio. If you’re not familiar with Some of the new printers supported: 840, 882, 930, 950, 970, 98x, 99x applications and also Final Writer and have translucent elements and up to to printing and relationship display and
ProStation it is an application for editing,
Canon BJC 1000, 2000, 4400 PageStream. 10 different colours. improved HTML documentation.
mixing and mastering digital audio. It For a list of all the printers TurboPrint
provides a virtual mixing desk and time Canon BJC 3000, 6000, 6100, 6200, supports visit the IrseeSoft homepage: • Load and save transfer anims for • A thumbnail bar which shows you the MUIBase is well worth a look, the
line user interface which supports auto- 7100, 8200 with full support for photo http://www.irseesoft.com Voyager, AWeb and IBrowse. currently open images (buffers). evaluation version is slightly limited and
matic and manual control. ProStation cartridge times out after four weeks, registration
Canon S 400, 450, 600, 800, 4500 with The full version of TurboPrint costs • Many improved animation features Download the latest version of Perfect
supports some sound cards directly costs $30 which is around £20. For
such as the Sunrise AD516 and all full support for photo cartridge £38.95 from Eyetech, they don’t yet list including transitions between two Paint, absolutely free, from: more information visit:
cards with an AHI driver, it is compatible Epson Stylus Color 460, 660, 670, the 7.20 upgrade but according to frames, dissolves and motion blur. http://gothic.fr.free.fr/amiga/
with many audio file formats, ideal for 760, 860,880, 900, 980 Irseesoft lit it is 69DM, about £20. • Perfect Paint is now localised, a 98% http://www.muibase.de
working in a multi platform environment. complete French translation is
The Voyage
Audio Labs’ first announcement was of a The Future of the Amiga?
new upgrade to ProStationAudio 4.20
which provides enhanced plug-ins sup-
Continues
port. Next was that they have tested
Mick Sutton and Robert Williams try and make sense of recent developments,
PSA with a Mediator and Sound Blaster
128 sound card in a professional studio it’s thought provoking stuff!
I thought it was about time we gave major additions in recent betas:
environment and found the combination Vaporware’s Voyager web browser When Amiga announced the AmigaOS. If the world becomes split probably most importantly it will be the
passed their tests. Later a similar an- another mention in these news pages as • Big overhaul of the download manage- Amithlon Amiga OS emulator between “classic” 68k Amiga users, OS4 platform for future AmigaOS develop-
nouncement was also made about the at the moment it is by far the most ment. for x86 Pc’s at AmiWest PPC users and x86 emulator users, ment, the x86 emulators will be stuck
DCE GREX and Terratec PCI sound
frequently updated Amiga browser, new • Javascript improvements, many to fix 2001 it caused a huge uproar amongst plain 68k code will be the only thing that with OS3.9 (although on OS4 port would
cards, again they are said to work well
beta versions for the 3.3 are being problems with specific sites. Amiga users, since then much more in- runs on all the platforms, which could almost certainly be technically possible).
and Audio Labs are working with DCE to
formation has become available and stifle the development of OS4 specific
ensure the best compatibility. Audio released approximately monthly and the • Single window mode, multiple pages another emulator has been announced, programs. It is increasingly hard to see where any
Lsguarapbppsh oaircltss to hc ena oridntess,dt a PtlhlraoatSito ttnah teoiosf netw sbouu psPp bCooIr atsr dths is bVpeootryata Fgislea nrs ohisw aa nblsdeo cP othDmeFi n opgnl ulvyge b-riyrno suw stshaeabrtl etdo.i s spulapy- ctaabns b aet sthheo wtonp .in one window, using Athmesigea e XmLu flraotomr sH calaaigme t&o Pruanr tmneord. eBront h Sknoo wwh waot na’bt obuet cPoPmCp partoibglera wmitsh t hthaet wx8e6 ffnurootwumr ,ev e eAirtymh efiegr wafoO drS eO vdSee4lvo epolero rOpsm So3ef .naxtn, wyth islel irzceeo ,ma ree
configuration with two monitors to in- these files inside the browser window. Beta versions can be downloaded from 68k Amiga software at speeds far in ex- emulators? Many PPC programs are can you imagine a major new applica-
crease the screen real estate available. The major feature in version 3.3 is a the V3 portal at: cess of current 060 based Amigas using also available in a 68k version that tion or original game being released in
new layout engine which is being http://v3.vapor.com run of the mill PC hardware. As these should run much faster than on a current the current Amiga market? In a market
ProStationAudio is available in several designed for better HTML, Javascript two emulators are potential competitors ‘060 system, they could well perform at with little new development the dif-
configurations starting at 125USD and Style Sheet com- and both require a licensed AmigaOS a similar speed to the PPC versions on ference between OS4 on the AmigaOne
(about £90), a demo version can be patibility and to be 3.9 Amiga and Haage & Partner decided current hardware! While there are major and OS3.9 on x86 is much less, you are
downloaded from: much faster too. The to release them both together as a PPC only programs these tend to be running your existing programs under
http://www.audiolabs.it latest beta versions package called AmigaOS XL. ported games which, to be brutally emulation in both cases. But x86 also
which the Voyager The idea of running your favourite honest, can probably be found in the offers you the option to run other OSs
team note still contain Amiga programs at break neck speed on bargain bin of your local PC store, they complete with their library of programs.
a debugging code readily available and therefore cheap may be good but they’re not going to be
and lack op- hardware is pretty exciting stuff for many a selling point of a new platform. Maybe we’ve got this all wrong, and as
Amiga say current PC users will try
timisations are al- Amiga users. However,if the emulators
The AmigaOne (and other similar AmigaOS XL and, to miss quote Victor
ready much faster on are successful they could well jeopar-
complex pages than dise sales of the AmigaOne and other systems such as Elbox’s Shark) will cer- Kyam “like it so much they buy the
previous versions. OS4 based systems, especially amongst tainly have many good points for ex- AmigaOne”! Maybe there will be some
ample it should have much better com- major developments for OS4 that make
Amigans who would find it useful to run
Apart from general patibility with older software, especially it really worth while, we’ll just have to do
bug fixes and speed other OS’s and have access to their titles which use the custom chipset and what Amiga users do best... wait and
ups here are the software on the same machine as the will also run existing PPC software. But hope!
8 CLUBBED - Issue 9 Winter 2001 9
FEATURES FEATURES
What Price the Future? Payback Update 4
Reader Jamie Winter wonders how new Amiga compatible machines will
Robert Wiliams and Mick Sutton find that the latest version of Payback is
compete against low priced PCs.
“bigger than your average update”!
Most Amiga owners will recog- So, all I need to do is buy an AOne whether you want the A1200 or A4000
nise the concept of having to board (preferably from an Amiga show), version. Since it’s release in February this
go undercover to enhance sling it in a tower and start adding all year, Payback development has
their machines. At one time or another those whizzy peripherals. Great! Merlancia have also just announced continued and three updates
we have all visited our local PC World or pricing for their high end, stainless steel have been released fixing some bugs,
Oh, hang on, maybe not so great. AOnes, which start at $2,000 (around
stack ‘em high, flog ‘em cheap dealer to improving many aspects of the game
There’s still a big question mark over £1,400 assuming you get a straight ex-
buy a hard drive, a digital camera, a and adding new features. As we go to
whether I will be able to buy a stan- change rate). Looks like dreams of a
scanner, a printer or whatever. On the print update four has just been released
dalone AOne board, and the signs are £300 super computer are up the
first occasion we’ve probably been quite and is the biggest yet with major
not looking good for the foreseeable fu- Swannee, then.
bold about telling the staff that we are changes and enhancements to the
Amiga owners, but after the assistant ture. If Eyetech want to make money on My local PC dealer is advertising an game engine. We’ve been tried a late
has ummed and ahhed for a bit and then their investment costs, they’ll AMD Duron 800MHz PC for £350. beta version of this new update to give
confidently announced that: “It’s a hard presumably want to sell packages, not Sticking Windows on it adds £80, giving you a feel for the enhanced game.
standalone goods. Why? Because they
drive; it won’t work on an Amiga,” we can make better profit on selling me the £430 for an operational(!) system. If you For those of you who have been kept in
probably don’t bother again. peripherals than they can on the board want to go the whole hog you can add the cellar for the last few months,
Instead, many of us will do our research itself. I don’t criticise them for this - they M$ Office Small Business edition for a Payback is a overhead view driving
further £170, giving a fully functioning
through Amiga Active, Clubbed or via need to earn a living after all - but they game where you play a criminal driver
and productive(!) system for £600. And
the Internet and then we will sneak sur- cannot then criticise me if I choose to and must steal cars, evade the cops,
this assumes you’re starting from
reptitiously into our local PC warehouse, delay my purchase of an AOne in the mow down pedestrians and generally
scratch. I suspect that Eyetech will not
find the item required, pay as quickly hope of a better deal in the future, or have good fun! It’s impossible to avoid
be able to compete with this level of
and as quietly as possible and leave, indeed if I choose not to buy one at all. comparisons with the classic Playstation
hopefully with little or no fuss. pricing. Reading between the lines I’m title Grand Theft Auto except here you
Secondly, it seems that OS4.0 will probably going to have to spend drive on the left... well mostly, you won’t
But why do so many of us go through require the attachment of a classic between £750 and £1,000 for a decent get far obeying the highway code! effect. The Warp3D support on my by several Payback users who have
this strange and slightly embarrassing Amiga to the AOne to work. As a desk- AOne system. Alternatively, I could buy Permedia 2 also adds a little speed to created their own cities to compliment
ritual? Well, price is clearly one of the top A4000 owner this isn’t very helpful, my nice PC and wait for OS5.0. The big new features are support for the game, especially in the rotating 3D the three supplied with the game.
driving factors. I’d love to support Amiga suggesting I would need to buy some PowerPC cards running WarpUp and mode (James Daniels informs us that Update four allows the use of new tex-
dealers when buying generic monster tower thing to fit the A4000 (or By the time you read this you should be accelerated 3D support via Warp3D. there should be a larger speed increase tures in user cities which should allow
peripherals, but frankly they’re too ex- an A1200) into so that the AOne and able to check my assumptions against The extra power from the PPC has been in the final version when the debugging completely new scenarios to be created.
some real pricing from Eyetech at
pensive and they’re usually too far away, classic boards are next to each other. WoASE or beyond. I would not claim to put to good use, the whole game runs a code is removed), but the main improve- Having played with this latest beta for a
which generates unwelcome postage Even then this is only for a temporary be an Amiga Zealot, but I am a big lot faster and is much smoother espe- ment is in the graphical quality, the dis- few days it rocks! The game looks great,
costs and raises the possibility of period, as the AOne board will stan- Amiga fan and I sincerely hope that cially in higher resolutions on a PPC play looks much smoother and more is more fun to play and still has a wicked
damage in transit, with all the return and dalone once OS4.2 comes out. system. The effects, in particular the detailed.
Eyetech and others will prove me wrong, sense of humour! Update 4 is free for
replace problems that generates. No, lighting has been greatly improved since
give me the undercover-but-save-money Then, of course, there is the issue of or will provide a system that is so - dare the original, lights on Belisha beacons Other improvements to the look of the existing Payback owners so rush over to
approach for bog standard peripherals cost. The PPC is a fine chip but it’s not I say it - revolutionary, that price doesn’t (at zebra crossings) and other vehicles game include gouraud shading, which is the Apex Designs website now! If you
any day. cheap when compared with its CISC matter any more. As it stands I am un- illuminate the surroundings naturally and responsible for the light effects, im- don’t own the game you can purchase it
cousins on billions of PCs near you. convinced, but I remain willing to be per- proved vehicle textures and scaling of from an Amiga dealer or on-line from the
buildings cast atmospheric shadows.
And yet, as I write this during the not so Eyetech have hinted that the AOne will suaded. the fonts and images for higher resolu- Apex site.
sunny month of August, I am told that be of similar cost to a high end PPC ac- In the original game the action is viewed tion screens.
everything is about to change. I may celerator for the classic line. It’s not There is also a further advantage for from above on a fixed axis, as you drive http://www.apex-designs.net
everyone if I am indeed wrong, as you One of Payback’s features is a map
have to buy my Amiga One board from clear whether this means the whole the city scrolls keeping you roughly in
all get to say “I told you so” in as smug a editor which has been put to good use
Eyetech, but in theory I will be able to system (unlikely) or just the board itself the centre of the screen. A major im-
tone as you like, and I will happily suffer
shop around for pretty much all the add- (more probable). Looking at the latest provement in the update is the new
that mild embarrassment for a future in
ons as they will be PCI, USB, Firewire or Power Computing ad in Amiga Active a rotating 3D view which is available if you
computing heaven.
whatever and will therefore be easily high end PPC accelerator costs have a PPC accelerator and/or a 3D
sourced and very good value for money. between £460 and £560 depending on accelerated graphics card. In rotating 3D
mode the camera is still above but you
Visit the Gary Storm’s Map to the World Clubbed Back Issues in always face the top the screen so the
Wide Web. PDF Format city seems to rotate as you drive. We
Clubbed Website found this view much easier to get to
New to the we? Want to add some We bring you all the out of print Clubbed
grips with as you always know which
variety to your surfing? back issues, as they were originally
We’ve got some exciting developments way your character or vehicle is facing.
Gary rounds up interesting sites on printed, in cross platform PDF format.
coming to the Clubbed website that As you pick up speed the camera zooms The three cities shown in these screen shots offer different weather conditions,
every topic under the sun!
should be on-line by the time this issue out giving you a wider view and pulls summer, rainy night time and winter. The winter shot in particular shows off
hits your doormat! Surf along to http://www.seal-amiga.co.uk for this and much more! back slightly which enhances the 3D the new rotating 3D view.
10 CLUBBED - Issue 9 Winter 2001 11
FEATURES FEATURES
d
e and bitmap fonts. While they work well
n
Desktop Publishing i on computer displays bitmap fonts don’t
a
l look so good when printed out because
p
x any modern printer is capable of printing
E
plain coloured text at much higher
resolutions than a monitor. This is where
The Amiga is an excellent platform for Amateur
scalable fonts come in, each character
publishers, Robert Williams covers the basics. of a scalable font is described as a
series of lines, curves and fills, this
Desktop publishing (or DTP for powerful it is now possible to do many Anatomy of a DTP means it can be scaled to any size and
resolution without pixels appearing,
short) is the creation of complex things inside the DTP application, for
Document much better suited for printing.
page layouts including text in example PageStream has a powerful set
various styles and graphics. Today it is of drawing tools and it would be quite As you might guess all DTP programs
A typical DTP document will consist of
one of the major uses of computer possible to write articles straight onto (except for a few of the really early
content from a variety of sources, here
systems, but in the mid 1980s DTP was the page too. While DTP programs have ones) use scalable fonts, however
are some of the key types:
an amazing new application for personal developed, wordprocessors have also before you start hoarding fonts right left
computers! it enabled anyone with a moved on, gaining many features that Text and centre there is another stumbling
relatively inexpensive home computer to were once the sole preserve of DTP ap- block, scalable fonts come in a variety of
create documents which had previously plications, let’s take a look at some of Text forms to bulk of most documents, formats and you need to get ones which Many documents,
required huge investments in equip- the differences that still exist. and luckily for us the ASCII standard are compatible with your DTP applica- including this
ment. In those days the big improve- means that to a large extent text is tion. Here are the most common types: brocure for WoA ‘99
ment that DTP programs brought over The Difference Between widely compatible between programs include a mixture of
word processors of the time, was the Wordprocessing and and between platforms. As a major part Adobe Type 1 text, bitmap and
integration of text and graphics in a of the DTP application’s role is to format Adobe developed this scalable font structured graphics.
DTP text, it is easiest to import text from a
single package and a graphical display format for use with their industry stan-
plain ASCII file with no styles or other
which showed the users what the dard Postscript page description lan-
In the last ten or so years the difference formatting (other than basic paragraphs)
printed result would look like, often guage which is used by all high-end
between a wordprocessing and DTP and then do all the work in the DTP Amiga programs support Compugraphic face, size, colour and other details in a
called WYSIWYG for What You See Is print devices, therefore it is the most
application has blurred, mostly as a application. If text for inclusion in your fonts, these include PageStream, named tag. For example you might have
What You Get. common format in professional DTP
huge range of features have been publication is supplied in another format Wordworth, ProPage, Graphics a style tag called “Sub Heading” that
circles. Type 1 fonts are supported by
Before we go into more detail on exactly added to wordprocessors, in particular some DTP applications support loading Publisher and quite a few others. defined 12pt Times Bold text. Text can
many Amiga packages including
what DTP is, and how you can go about support for graphics, scalable fonts, text other formats, for example from Notable exceptions are FinalWriter and then be selected and a defined style tag
PageStream, Final Writer, DrawStudio
creating documents on your Amiga we boxes which allow text to be freely wordprocessors, directly, otherwise DrawStudio. applied, automatically the text then gets
and ProPage. For overall compatibility I
should separate the activity of “Desktop placed on the page and WYSIWYG dis- there are plenty of utilities which can be those settings defined in the tag, ensur-
Publishing” i.e. creating complex plays. However wordprocessors are still used to convert these formats to plain have found type 1 fonts to be the best Size ing all text assigned that tag is consis-
choice.
documents on a desktop computer, from largely based on pages containing one text before importing. Once your text is The size of text printed on the page is tent. But that’s not all, if you then go and
a DTP application such as PageStream. or more columns of text, this makes it sitting on the page the average DTP TrueType measured from the bottom of the lowest change the settings for a previously
The activity of DTP commonly uses a easy to launch a wordprocessor and program offers you a myriad of format- This format was developed by Microsoft descender (for example the hook on a defined style tag, say we went from 12
variety of applications to create the con- start typing a document without needing ting options, let’s explore some of the and Apple and because of this now lower case “y” or “g” to the highest as- to 14pt in our example, all the text with
tent of the document, be it text, graphics to consider page layout. In contrast most text related terminology: probably the most commonly fond on cender (e.g. the top of a lower case “f” that tag applied would change, enabling
or drawings which are then brought DTP programs start with a clean page Fonts the Internet and other sources of fonts. or “h”), it is usually measured in points you to change the style of a document in
together in the DTP program itself to and let you place text columns where TrueType is not as widely supported by (pt), one point is 1/72nd of an inch so a few clicks. Many packages have style
produce the final pages. For example I ever you wish. They support linking Font refers to the style of lettering used Amiga programs but it is gaining ground. the overall height of a 12pt font would be tags for both single bits of text and
am not typing this article straight into columns into complex layouts and much for text, in fact the font is the overall PageStream 3 had an optional TrueType 0.1667” or 4.233mm. whole paragraphs, allowing you to con-
PageStream, I could, but it is a large more powerful formatting controls. style, for example Helvetica or Times is font engine that is now included as stan- trol paragraph specific settings like line
complex application with a relatively Finally a DTP application will normally a font, each font can have a number of dard with version 4, Wordworth (from Leading spacing and indents. Some publishers
slow screen display, I find it much enable you to produce higher quality type faces, for example Times Bold or version 3 I believe) also has TTF sup- This is the technical term for line spac- have extended to the concept of style
quicker to use FinalWriter and in fact I output and support the standards neces- Helvetica Narrow. Literally thousands of port. A freeware TrueType font library, ing, it is pronounced “ledding” which tags to other parts of their program, for
could be using a simple text editor just sary for professional printing. In essence fonts are available, many can be found ttflib, is available which means all pro- refers to the days when the space example in PageStream you can have
as well. The same also applies to bitmap a DTP program provides more flexibility on the Internet or in CD-ROM collec- grams which use the Amiga’s standard between the lines of metal type was object style tags which define settings
graphics and some drawings, they are and freedom than a wordprocessor but tions, you can also purchase profes- fonts system can use TrueType fonts. packed with lead. Leading is also like the line thickness and fill colour of
created separately and imported into the also demands that you put some effort sionally designed typefaces. There are a Sadly most DTP programs tend to use measured in points and is the distance drawn objects.
PageStream for the final layout. into designing your document. wide variety of font formats available, their own font systems so this doesn’t between lines of text. It is common for
Graphics
As computers have become more you need to make sure you obtain ones effect as many programs as you might the leading to be 20% of the type size so
that are compatible with your chosen hope, in fact TurboPrint’s Graphics 10pt type would have 2pt leading. The other key component of a DTP
software. First there are two basic types Publisher is the only one that springs to Styles document is graphics, the images and
of font, bitmapped and scalable. Each mind. drawings used. There are two distinct
character in a bitmap font is defined as a DTP applications usually offer some way types of graphic files used in DTP
AGFA Compugraphic
pattern of pixels, they are commonly of formatting text in a consistent way, documents, bitmap and structured.
used in computer displays because they The Compugraphic format was chosen one of the keys to creating a profes- These vary not necessarily in what they
are fast to process and can be tailored by Amiga and is supported by the OS sional looking document. This is can be used to represent (each of which
to look good on a relatively low resolu- from version 2.04 onwards, of the three normally achieved using style tags, is best suited to different types of
tion monitor, the standard fonts that listed here it is the least common on these work by holding all the information image), but in how they store the image
come with your Amiga such as Topaz other platforms. A large number of about the style, for example the type data.
The parts of a type face and how it is measured.
12 CLUBBED - Issue 9 Winter 2001 13
FEATURES FEATURES
Bitmap Graphics then be reproduced at any size and res- grams offer more powerful page spreads have some way of creating column Pagination size, where shapes, lines and bitmaps
olution without the any pixelisation. which can consist of a number of pages. grids, it may be automatic or you may are located and their format. A
Bitmap graphics are composed of a
pixel grid (just like bitmap fonts) with While structured drawings are will suited Master Pages have to define your own with page Even a simple eight page booklet Postscript printer contains a processor
to diagrams and logos they don’t work guides. made of two sheets of folded paper and memory which runs software
each pixel being a defined colour. They Pages in a document can be based on a
well for continuous tone images like has to be paginated properly: (stored in the printer’s ROM) called a
can range from mono or 1bit images master page, usually it is possible to Page Guides
photographs which tend not to contain Postscript interpreter which processes
(each pixel is represented by 1bit of have several master pages, for example
well defined shapes. Like the page grid, guides help you align the page into a bitmap at the correct res-
data, that is either on or off, usually one for each section in the publication. 8 1 2 7
and position objects on the page, guides olution for the printer to print. As all this
black or white although any other two Most DTP programs include a selection The master page contains elements that
can usually be defined at any horizontal work happens in the printer printing to
colours can be used.) up to 24bit image of structured drawing tools, enabling you appear on every page, a common use
or vertical position on the page and Postscript is usually much quicker than
which represent each pixel using 8bits of to draw simple graphics such as boxes, would be for headers and footers.
objects will snap to them at any point 6 3 4 5 to other types of printer. The down side
red, green and blue data, 24bit images lines and arrows straight onto the page Variable elements can also be placed on
along their length. Programs often auto- is that Postscript printers tend to be sig-
are full colour and can be used for pho- however there are also dedicated draw- master pages so they can also be used
matically create guides showing where nificantly more expensive than their rela-
tographs. Like bitmap fonts, the quality ing programs, like DrawStudio which for information that must appear on Pages 1 and 8 will be the front cover
you have defined the margins of the tively dumb counterparts. On the Amiga
of a bitmap image on screen and on the generally have more tools and effects. every page, like the page number. with 2 and 7 printed on their reverse.
page so text boxes and other objects there is another use for printing
printed page will depend on its resolu- Master pages can be edited at any time
Clip Art can be easily aligned to the edge. As I Postscript, most Amiga programs print
tion which is defined by the number of during the document creation so, like
mentioned above it may be necessary to that is with page 2 and 3 (for example) using the AmigaOS printer drivers which
pixels it contains and the size it is dis- A huge selection of pre-made graphics text styles, they enable the look of the
use guides to define your column grid. next to each other in a page spread. up to OS 3.5 only supported 12bit colour
played or printed. For example a monitor for use in DTP documents are available publication to be adjusted quickly with-
However if you think about the actual data, the classic 4096 colours. Even
has a resolution of between 70 and 100 from a number of sources including on out editing every page. Alignment
pages that are to be printed 2 and 3 will with a print enhancer like TurboPrint if
pixels per inch, taking the high end of the Internet and in CD-ROM collections.
Grids Another useful feature to have in a DTP not actually be next to each other. Take an application, as many do, only passes
that scale an image 3 inches wide on These graphics are called clip art and
program is an alignment tool, this allows a look at this copy of Clubbed (or any 12bits of colour information to the driver
screen would therefore need to be 300 can be in bitmap or structured format. A Two types of grid are commonly found in
you to align objects to each other and other stapled magazine) and turn to the colour quality will be limited. Since
pixels wide to display at full quality, a clip art image can be easily dropped into DTP applications, the first is the evenly
the page, for example you could place page two (the inside cover) you will see version 7 TurboPrint has come with
lower resolution image could be used a document to brighten up a page, most spaced grid which covers the whole
an object exactly in the middle of the it is printed on the back of page one and Ghostscript, a software Postscript inter-
but you would be able to see the pixels is supplied in standard formats and is page, objects such as text columns and
page or move several objects so their to the right of it on the same sheet is the preter, this enables any application that
which make it up, it would begin to look compatible with Amiga programs, for drawn shapes can be set to snap to the
left edges all aligned. Other object inside back cover, page forty three. can print colour Postscript to output to
blocky. Common printers have 1200dpi example bitmap clip art is often in the grid ensuring they are neatly aligned
manipulation tools often included in DTP Page three on the other hand is on the any TurboPrint supported printer in per-
(dots per inch) or more resolution, in real widely supported GIF or JPEG formats. and evenly spaced. The grid can usually
programs allow you to move multiple front of page four and to its left is page fect colour.
life dots this small tend to run into each Structured formats are a little more dif- be set to the desired interval, for ex-
copies of an objects to quickly make forty two. So as you can see before we
limiting the true resolution which in any ficult with WMF and EPS being the most ample 5mm squares and changed at grids and tables. print this type of document the pages Printing Bureau
case is only achieved with the printer’s common formats, these are directly sup- will.
primary colours. Any other colour ported by some programs and can be Document Structure have to be re-arranged, this is called If you want to have your work profes-
requires a combination of coloured dots converted with Metaview (see review on The other type of grid defines the pagination. Some applications, including sionally printed there are several ways
reducing the effective resolution further. page 20) to more Amiga friendly formats general layout for the columns of text on Complex or long documents such as PageStream 4, have automatic pagina- of getting your document to the printing
Even so good quality printers can with varying degrees of success. the page, this does not have to be even books, technical reports, and even mag- tion built in, one of the excellent Don’s bureau. Some expect you to supply your
achieve about 300dpi in colour and and can be set as the designer wants. azines often have a structure consisting Genies gave ProPage this feature. work as an application file from an
600dpi in mono, this means that images Page Layout Of course there doesn’t not have to be a of sections and/or chapters. Some ap- Otherwise it is usually possible to industry standard program like Quark
for print need to be at significantly higher column grid at all, you can just place text plications include support for these manually paginate a document by Express and are unlikely to be able to
resolution than those for screen display. The main task of a DTP application is to boxes as you wish. However deciding features allowing, for example, page moving the pages around by hand al- handle the files of Amiga programs.
enable you to layout pages consisting of on a grid and largely sticking to it does numbering to change in different chap- though this needs to be carefully However there are lots of other options:
Structured Graphics the elements I have already mentioned. once again add to the consistency of the ters. These mechanisms are also some- planned to avoid getting terribly con-
Most packages provide a variety of tools publication as a whole or to a particular times related to style tags and master fused. Camera Ready Artwork - You supply
If bitmap fonts are similar to bitmap
to make this easier, and provide consis- section. For example in a magazine a pages so each chapter can have its own printed copies of the pages you want
graphics structured graphics are the twin
tency between pages, particularly in grid that works well for a review may be look (or just a different header and Local Printing printed, this was the method used for
of scalable fonts. Instead of an image
longer documents and publications. hopeless for the news sections. footer). Other features useful features early issues of Clubbed and magazines
made of pixels at a fixed resolution a The most simple method of printing is to
for long documents are automatic like JAM (Just Amiga Monthly), for this
structured drawing is described as a Page Spreads In Clubbed you will notice that we print to a printer directly attached to your
generation of tables of contents, tables method you need a printer that can out-
series of lines, shapes and fills it can usually use an evenly spaced three Amiga through the standard AmigaOS
of images (figures) and indexing. These put in your chosen format, to create the
A page spread, as you can probably column grid with a 5mm gap between printer drivers. Almost all applications
Page Layout guess is a group of pages which can be the columns (called the gutter). We hose features usually require the words or support this and assuming you have a artwork for Clubbed issues 1 and 2 I
images to be added to the table to be used an A3 format HP Deskjet 1120C.
A typical double page spread layout viewed together, the most common type this layout because we found four or marked in some way. driver for your printer it is straight for- Printing from camera ready artwork will
with a three column grid. is a double page spread (DPS) which more columns made each one too ward. However, for a number of reasons usually give noticeably poorer results
The lines show some guides: you see in any normal folded publica- narrow. However a grid with few Output you may want to consider other options. than methods which are printed directly
tion, there can easily be other types to columns does make the layout fairly in- For example you may want a large
from the digital data.
though, for example in a double folded flexible, to fit neatly an image has to be The final purpose of any DTP program is quantity of a document printed that
booklet or menu would have three-page one or two columns wide which doesn’t to produce some sort of document, for would be impractical on a home printer Postscript - The document is output as
spreads and a book or magazine or give you many size options. For sections many years this meant printed output or maybe you want a format that your a PostScript file using the Postscript
book with fold-out sections could have such as the tutorials which tend to have and while that is still a big part of it we printer does not support. Lets take a Printer Definition (PPD) file for the print
more. Most DTP programs support lots of graphics we switch to an irregular must now also consider electronic look at some other options: bureau’s output device which ensures
double page spreads, allowing you to grid with one wider column, this gives documents too. you use a supported paper size and the
Postscript
layout your pages as they will be seen in more flexibility and also allows us to put postscript is tailored for their machine.
Pagination
the finished publication. Page spreads captions in the wider gutter. So think Postscript is a page description lan- This method gives the bureau least con-
also allow you objects to cover both about whether your publication needs a When you layout a document which is guage developed by Adobe, a Postscript trol over what is printed and they are
Margin Guides pages, for example a picture or headline grid and if it does which layout each sec- going to be folded and bound you will file describes the page in terms of where basically trusting you and your software
Column guides which spans the middle fold. Some pro- tion will use. DTP programs generally want to work on it how it will be read, each character is located, its font and to get everything right, however it is
14 CLUBBED - Issue 9 Winter 2001 15
FEATURES FEATURES
compatible with all software that can graphics via datatypes and structured own drivers and Postscript. Many other ported it’s own ProDraw Clip file format DTP Utilities
produce PostScript files. drawings in EPS format. Output is via features round off the package including which enabled many drawings to be
AmigaOS printer drivers or PostScript a bundled text editor and image proces- saved in one file. The last version was 3
EPS - An Encapsulated Postscript file is
and in my opinion generally works rather sor, finally if you find something it can’t which sadly, like other Gold Disk soft-
not device specific and is intended to
better than Wordworth, particularly for do there is a powerful AREXX port for ware doesn’t work well on graphics
hold one image, in this case it would be
colour documents. automation. cards. Robert Williams unearths some of the most useful
the image of a complete page. EPS
gives the printing bureau more control Wordworth - Digita Professional Page - Gold Disk ProVector - Stylus Inc. companions to your DTP application.
as they can size the pages to fit the
ProPage was the king of the Amiga DTP Version 2 was given away on a cover
The later versions of Wordworth in-
paper, control the order in which they
scene for much of the early 90s and it is disk in the early ‘90s and was a useful
are printed and choose the printing pro- cluded many DTP like features such as PgS Universal Filter
an extremely powerful package with program supporting the IFF-DR2D
powerful text boxes that can contain for-
cess they use. EPS files have to be im-
most of the features you would need. format. A version 3 was released with an
matted text in multiple columns, al- By Wolf Faust - uni.coloraid.de
ported into another program before they
The final release before Gold Disk attractive OS 2/3 style interface however
though I don’t think these columns can
can be printed so this method is more stopped Amiga support was version 4 it was very expensive at the time and The universal filter adds to PageStream
be linked. Another DTP like feature is
time consuming than plain PS. Since which included AGA support. Many quickly dropped afterwards. 3 and 4’s already extensive support for
style sheets which are the Wordworth
issue 3 Clubbed has been printed from publications have been produced using bitmap graphics formats. Originally this
equivalent of style tags mentioned ear-
EPS files. ProPage including subscription maga- Hardware filter was only available to users of
lier. Page handling is also very powerful,
Portable Document Format - PDF is allowing you to have facing pages and zines like JAM and Em and the French It’s hard to put together a list of Wolf’s commercial Studio print enhance-
another format based on Postscript, it double page spreads with objects span- newsstand magazine Amiga Info (and “requirements” for DTP on the Amiga ment package, but now he has made it
allows a whole document to be stored in ning two pages, this is completed with a probably many more). Sadly ProPage because there are such a range of freeware. Until the release of
one file. PDF is commonly used to pub- handy multiple page view. Images are does not work well on graphics cards so things you could be doing, if you are PageStream 4, the most important in-
lish documents on-line so PDF output supported via datatypes for bitmap it has slipped behind quickly on modern working on mono documents consisting clusion was the JPEG loader which The RxMUI interface of
may well be the final result you are after. graphics structured drawings in the systems. If you don’t have a graphics of mostly text then a basic machine, say otherwise had to be purchased as a Picture Catalog 4.
PageStream has a PDF saver and the CGM format. Wordworth’s weak point card it is well worth seeking out a an ‘030 with 8Mb of RAM will be rather expensive optional extra from and txtRotator which is a more flexible
open source GhostScript utility can be has always been its printing, it supports second hand copy. adequate. On the other hand if you’re Softlogik (I have no problem paying for version of the text-on-a-curve effects in
most extras but a JPEG loader is pretty
used to turn PostScript documents into AmigaOS drivers but does not take Page Setter - Gold Disk working with very high resolution standard now!). With version 4 Softlogik the TextFX add-on.
PDFs. As PDF has become very popular advantage of enhancements like graphics weighing in at tens of
on other platforms many print bureaus TurboPrint for 24bit quality. The The PageSetter series was GoldDisk’s megabytes each or very long documents bundled many of the extras including the Picture Catalog
will print directly from PDF files. Postscript output seems to be limited to irnetmroedmucbteior nth tios DwTaPs ifno rt hheo mdaey uwsheersn, then even the fastest current Amigas will JfiPlteErG s tlioll asdueprp. oHrotsw ae vweird, ethr era unngiev eorfs faille This script generates overview sheets
Software greyscale for bitmap image which limits ProPage and PageStream cost hun- begin to feel the strain. Another aspect types and also is very compatible with for images in one or more directories
the use of Turbo Print’s GhostScript sup- dreds of pounds. PageSetter 3 is the to bear in mind is that DTP tends to in- variations on file format (for example that you specify. Michael has three ver-
Although there isn’t the choice of pub- port. last version and really the only one you volve using several applications at once. different levels of compression). sions which use different GUI engines,
lishing software on the Amiga that exists DTP should consider when buying second In addition to a DTP program, you may Altogether ten types are supported and the first has a simple GUI using
on other platforms, there is something hand, it supports AGA machines and well have a text editor or word processor it will fall back to datatypes for formats PageStream’s built in tools, the other
available to support most levels from the PageStream 2 - Softlogik reviews of the day rated it highly. As with and various graphics programs running, not supported. Some of the more com- two both use MUI, one via MUIRexx and
beginner to the serious amateur publish- PageStream 2 is still a useful DTP pro- ProPage sadly PageSetter isn’t so this tends to put an even bigger drain on mon supported formats are: BMP, GIF, the last and most highly developed
er. Much of this software is no longer gram and to Softlogik’s credit still works happy on machines with a graphics resources. IFF ILBM (including HAM, HAM8, EHB, using RxMUI. This last version seems to
available new so you may need to scour well on current Amigas. It is fine for card. As an example for a long time I have CMYK), JPEG, PNG and TIFF. have every option you could think of, it is
the second hand listings on Amibench to black and white work although if I produced Clubbed on my A3000 with possible to define the size and number
find a copy. This section isn’t intended to remember correctly it is lacking for Drawing 64Mb of RAM, this worked quite com- Although not directly DTP related, I will of thumbnails per page, their spacing,
also mention Wolf’s excellent ICS scan-
be a review of each application, but I colour work. In its favour is an attractive DrawStudio - fortably with no problems, however I ner colour calibration software here, this the text shown with each one and many
hope to give you an idea of their AmigaOS 2 look interface which is Andy and Graham Dean recently upgraded to 128Mb and this allows you to calibrate your scanner and more options.
capabilities.
easier to get to grips with than ProPage. now means I can run another major then automatically corrects images as Font Catalog
The most modern structured drawing
Word Publishers PageStream 3/4 - Softlogik program available on the Amiga, with asipdpel iPcaatgioenS (trfoera mex awmithp lae cImomagpeleFtXe )i saslouneg you scan improving colour accuracy. It is As you might guess this creates a very
directly supported by most popular scan-
As word processing applications have PageStream is the only Amiga DTP pro- lots of cool features like transparent fills loaded. useful overview of the fonts you have
been developed many DTP features gram currently in development, however and useful features like object snap. ning software and can also be used as a installed for use with PageStream. Font
post processor. ICS is also freeware,
have been added, on the Amiga both despite very shaky beginnings in the mid DrawStudio is also very useful for com- Conclusion Catalog is similar to Picture Catalog in
available from http://ics.coloraid.de.
Final Writer and Wordworth followed this ‘90s it has matured into an excellent bining structured and bitmap graphics. that it lets you set the layout and spac-
development path and became known product. It has far more features than For full details see our review in issue 8. Desktop publishing to a reasonably high Picture Catalog, Font ing of the sample print, you can define
level is easily possible on the Amiga,
as Word Publishers, wordprocessors any other Amiga programs and runs the text that will be used for the font pre-
Art Expression - Softlogik
and while PageStream is relatively ex- Catalog and other
with many DTP features. very well on modern systems with full view and how it will be labelled. If, like
Softlogk’s companion drawing program pensive you can get started with older
Final Writer - Softwood graphics card support. PageStream has for PageStream 2 with the same attrac- software or one of the Wordpublishers AREXX scripts me, you have a huge font collection then
excellent support for all sorts of text, you will appreciate the option to choose
Final Writer is a very powerful word document, graphics and drawing tive OS 2/3 interface, PageStream 3 in- on a small budget. Getting good output By Michael Merkel - which fonts you wish to print.
processor and it has always had some formats, there are also third party corporated most of Art Expression’s is one of the Amiga’s weaker points but home.t-online.de/home/Merkel.Michael/
DTP features which are also useful to loaders that expand this even further. It features so the product was dropped Turbo Print 7 with Ghostscript has im- Fuzzy Shadows
Wordprocessing including both text and is very flexible in the types of documents when the new PageStream version was proved that area no end, especially as Michael has written a whole host of in- Creates a nice soft shadow under the
paragraph style tags and master pages. it can create, you can vary the page size released. DTP programs almost always have good teresting AREXX script for PageStream selected object which can add a profes-
However it wasn’t until the last “Final within a document and their is full sup- Professional Draw - Gold Disk Postscript support. Getting into DTP can 3 and 4, many are enhancements of the sional touch to documents, as long as
Writer 97” release that multi-line text port for longer documents with sections turn your Amiga into a really useful tool! scripts supplied with PageStream or of you don’t over use it! As with all
The drawing companion to Professional internal functions. For example he has
boxes were adding which enable Final and chapters. The range of output Michael’s scripts this is very con-
Page, for many years the best drawing new transform function which can scale
Writer to be used as a mini-DTP pro- options is also very wide, supporting figurable, you can choose the colour (al-
program on the Amiga. ProDraw sup- by factors to give more complex effects
gram. Graphics support includes AmigaOS printer drivers, PageStream’s
16 CLUBBED - Issue 9 Winter 2001 17
FEATURES
Kicksoft
If you don’t see what you want, just ask!
though it must exist in the palette) and Singh Munde -
Our range is always growing!
intensity of your shadows, their offset go.to/docdatatypes
from the object and the quality of the
Shareware, £20 Players
final effect.
If you’re having trouble getting a text
In addition to the scripts I’ve mentioned
format into your DTP application then Graphics
there are also many others which just
DocDatatypes is probably a good bet, it Moovid PPC
makes life with PageStream even easier,
if you’re a PageStreamer you’d be mad is a collection of text datatypes which Drawstudio P£P1C8 .v0e0rsion with both WARPUP and POWERUP versions. Comes on CD
support documents from a huge range This excellent Graphics package avaliable one again!! Comes on CD and
not to check Michael’s page out! Moovid
of wordprocessors both old and new. includes Texture Studio & Image Studio.
£35.00 Play AVI, Mov and QT files on your Amiga© Comes on CD and includes demo
FW Calendar While they don’t support complex files.
Photogenics 5
One of the effects you can acheive formatting, images and the like these £12.00
This excellent Graphics package by Paul Nolan. On CD.
By Ron Goertz - using the Step and Repeat genie. datatypes are ideal for DTP applications £70.00 Frogger PPC
home.earthlink.net/~goertz/Ron/ where you don’t tend to want those PPC MPEG player. Comes on CDwith example MPEGs.
Image Engineer
£18.00
more than dabble with ProPage myself details anyway. Altogether there are
Another fantastic AREXX script, and this Great Image manipulation program. Add effects to images such as Jigsaw, Frogger
(I’ve been a PageStream guy from the eleven datatypes supporting over 20 Wave and Frame! Comes on CD.
one is so flexible, not only does it sup- 68k MPEG player. Comes on CD with example MPEGs.
version 2 days ), but I remember reading different applications (and that’s not £25.00
port both Final Writer (version 4+) and £12.00
PageStream (3 and 4) but it also works at the time about the excellent ProPage counting the application versions sup- Candy Factory Pro Riva
with two GUI systems Triton and Genies written by Don Cox, who’s name ported), some of the keys ones are: MS C Croematees 3 oDn TCeDxt. from any standard font and use them on web pages etc. The fastest 68k MPEG player on the Amiga! Comes on CD with example
is now often seen adorning the review Word (DOS, Windows, OS/2 and Mac), MPEGs.
ClassAct... all in the one script, amazing! £35.00
pages of Amiga Active. A Genie is Lotus AmiPro, WordPerfect, Rich Text £18.00
The purpose of FWCalendar is... you’ve Art Effect 4
SoftCinema
GoldDisk’s name for an AREXX script File, Pocket Word, Psion Word, Palm DB
guessed it... to generate calendars and and in this archive Don has included TEXT Doc and Mac Text. BCiDlle.d as “Photoshop® on the Amiga”. Excellent graphic package. Comes on PPC AVI, QT and Mov player. On CD with example Movies.
it does this with great aplomb. Firstly £18.00
nearly seventy genies which range from £75.00
you have the choice of two styles, either Support for text datatypes has never AMP 2 NNEEWW
the handy to the downright amazing. FxPaint NNEEWW
a number of months (up to a year) on been as wide spread in applications as it PPC Mpeg, CD-i and DVD player. The only way to play DVDs on the AMIGA.
With over 70 effects this is a superb addition to any software collection.
one page or one month per page. The Some of the most impressive are: is for graphics datatypes. For this £60.00 ££1188..0000
script is supplied with preferences files reason you will probably not be able to
Border Repeats which can be used to
containing the public holidays for many load text directly into your DTP applica-
make perfect borders for boxes out of DTP Internet
countries so special days will be ap- tion using the DocDatatypes. Instead
any graphics you select, there are
propriately marked when you generate use Multiview (or another datatypes
several options to get just the effect you PageStream 4
your calendars. Then there is a separate aware text viewer) to load the document, Inet Dial
utility to add events to your country’s want. then save it as plain text, compatible £Th1e6 P0r.e0m0ier DTP program on the Amiga©, enough said!! Home server on your Amiga©. Comes on CD, includes Apache and Geek
Gadgets.
calendar, for example birthdays, an- Border Simple Shapes draws simpler a with all applications. PageStream Upgrade £40.00
niversaries or holidays. Events can border around the selected box from The Premier DTP program on the Amiga©. Upgrade from version 3, you will AWeb
stretch for more than one day and you presets built in to the macro. need to provide your serial number. Excellent web browser Full Version. Comes on Floppy.
£65.00
can select for them to be marked on the £35.00
Step and Repeat Deluxe which again
calendar with a colour, or even a small AWeb Upgrade
uses selected graphics or objects, copy- DTP Links
image which can be in any format sup- Misc Excellent web Browser. Upgrade from OS 3.5 or OS 3.9. Comes on Floppy.
ing and moving them in various ways,
ported by the package being used. £29.99
while this sounds mundane the options
Software GoldEd
FWCalendar is an exceptionally full- allow you to create anything from tables
The best Editor, Program Editor, HTML Generator on the Amiga. Comes on CD.
featured script that performs a very use- to spiral effects with this tool. SoftLogik (PageStream) £30.00
ful function, another one that’s well As I mentioned in the main DTP feature http://www.grasshopperllc.com TaskiSMS
worth a look! Send Text Messages to mobile phones from your Amiga! Comes on CD. Utilities
one of the genies, booklet, enables
Kicksoft (DrawStudio and more) £12.00
ProPage to carry out automatic pagina-
http://www.kicksoft.co.uk Spitfire 2 Professional File System 3
tion for printing folded publications, for
If you have a 3com Palm© or compatible then you need this program! Comes The fastest and safest file system avaliable, upto 300 times faster than FFS. No
example an A5 booklet on A4 paper (it Truetype Font Library on CD. longer get Validation errors!
requires a Postscript printer or software http://home.sprynet.com/sprynet/ £25.00 £35.00
interpreter). ragriffi/ttflib.htm Directory Opus 5 Metaview
The best Workbench replacement program avaliable. Fully multitasking, Filetype The best Clipart viewer on the Amiga©. Comes on CD with 30,000 clip art im-
The genies are supplied in both English Aminet recognition and much more... ages.
and French, the French documentation http://www.aminet.net/~aminet £55.00 £18.00
includes many example images explain- FxScan NEW Diavolo
Second hand software:
ing the effect of different settings which The only Scanner software that offers OCR on the Amiga today!! The best backup program on the Amiga©. Comes on Floppy disk.
http://www.amibench.org
apply to both languages so, as Don £30.00 £50.00
FWCalendar allows you to add or the comp.sys.amiga.marketplace
recommends, make sure you take a look OS 3.9 NEW PhotoFolio V2 NNEEWW
custom events to your calendar. at both sets of documentation. newsgroup. Latest operating system for the Amiga. Comes on CD. The professional way to view, catolouge and manipulate your images.
£30.00 £30.00
ProPage Genies Info.
Please note I have no idea whether Don
is still accepting registrations for this
By Don Cox - Some interesting history of type set- Add £1.00 UK postage per item. Make cheques payable to Kicksoft Ltd. Kicksoft Ltd.,
Aminet, text/dtp/DonsGenies.lha package if you decide to register make ting and font related information: Buy Online at 30 Whitegate Way,
sure you contact him first to get a cur- Tadworth,
http://www.graphion.com/
Shareware $15 (about £12) rent address etc. Surrey, KT20 5NS
www.kicksoft.co.uk Tel/Fax [phone]
I have to admit that I’ve never done Doc Datatypes
18 CLUBBED - Issue 9