A 1997 AMIGA Computer Guide: From the A600 to a PowerPC Professional Workstation

Hi Max! Got your letter. All of us (i.e. EXTREME) were really happy about your decision to join our union, and we've decided to appoint you as the regional representative and organizer of EXTREME for Samara and the surrounding region. So from now on it's up to you to handle all questions at the regional level, including whether SPEED CO. should join XTM as a whole or not. You know the Samara scene people better, so your decisions will be the most objective. By the way, if you'd like to contact/correspond with other groups from XTM, I can give you the addresses and phone numbers of their organizers. Just let me know. One more question: is anyone from Samara, and specifically you, planning to go to E'97? We (MAGIC SOFT) are going, most likely as a full lineup; EXPLODER (ex-VAV) from MEGACODE is going too; it's not clear yet about the BEERMANS guys. But both MEGACODE and BEERMANS are working on a demo. Are you guys preparing anything? We'll be bringing graphics and music for the Speccy and the Amiga. About OBERON: if your magazine ends up coming out under the EXTREME label, I'll take it on for distribution, and you'll be able to make money off it not just in Samara but across the whole country. You can put me in charge of officially distributing the magazine throughout the CIS. I guarantee maximum effort on promotion and sales. If you need any graphics or music for the magazine, just ask! Also, I might send you a few interesting articles from XTM members soon. Now let's move on to AMIGA. Here's a slightly expanded and edited section of the article about AMIGA computer models: AMIGA 600 — the ideal machine for people who don't understand computers at all: pop a disk in the drive and everything loads on its own, no need to type any commands. A great alternative to the Spectrum — costs only a bit more, but offers way more capability! A huge amount of games, demos, system software, and so on. You can work in basic text editors, graphics editors (up to 4096 colors), write music in Pro-Tracker and the like (4 DMA channels at 8-bit, sounds better than a Sound Blaster 16 Pro on PC!), and work with networks in text mode (Fido, Internet, etc). Extremely handy for copying protected disks. Price: $199 AMIGA 1200 — most software these days is written specifically for this one. A "bare" A1200 is already a big step up from the A600 — you can already work in serious publishing systems (like MS-WORD), draw graphics in 16.8 million colors, play much cooler games, basically more of everything. A fully 32-bit computer. Graphical Internet access. Compatible with the A600. Price: $399–$499 AMIGA 1200 + 4MB fast — an AMIGA with expanded memory. Runs three times faster than a "bare" AMIGA 1200. You can now work almost fully in the system — absolutely all system programs, games, and demos run. You can compose multichannel music (up to 256 channels, 14-bit Hi-Fi stereo). Price: $499–$599 AMIGA 1200 + Blizzard 1230/50MHz + 8MB fast — today's AMIGA, with an accelerator on a 68030/50MHz processor plus extra memory, runs 10 times faster than a "bare" AMIGA 1200. A dream machine for a programmer, publisher, artist, musician, animator, or just a computer enthusiast in general — the optimal choice for creative work, professional work, and leisure! Full functionality in the system, fast 3D graphics performance. Every program ever written for the AMIGA runs properly on it. The go-to compo machine at many parties. Overall, this is our recommended option for home use. Price: $669–$769 AMIGA 1200 + Blizzard 1240/40MHz + 16MB fast — 30 times faster than a "bare" AMIGA 1200. Buy one of these AMIGAs and you're basically also buying yourself an Apple MACINTOSH at home — this AMIGA can practically fully emulate that computer. Price: $843–$943 AMIGA 1200 + Blizzard 1260/50MHz + 32MB fast — a very fast AMIGA, running 50 times faster than a "bare" A1200. A superb machine for rendering, 3D animation creation, and semi-professional use. Price: $1219–$1319 AMIGA 1200 + Power Blizzard 604e/200MHz + 64MB fast + Zorro-II + CyberVision 64/3D + genlock — a professional workstation built on a PowerPC processor for producing computer graphics for films, commercials, and the like. Nonlinear and linear editing and all the other tricks used in video studios. Basically, on this machine you can do just about anything the latest computer-graphics technology allows. By the way, AMIGA computers were used to create the CGI for well-known films such as TERMINATOR 2, JURASSIC PARK, BABYLON 5, STAR TREK, and others. Price: $2000–$2500. Last time, when I put together the pricing for the models, I based it on a "used" A1200, which is $100 cheaper for us. So to get the price for an absolutely "brand-new" configuration, add $100 to the listed price. This time I wrote the prices with a dash, i.e. one figure for the used-A1200 option and one for the new-A1200 option. Now let me get to answering your questions: The AMIGA 1200 MAGIC package includes: an A1200 computer (Kickstart 3.1); a (white) 320 dpi mouse; a power supply; an RF cable for connecting to a TV; the WorkBench 3.1 operating system; an operating manual and a WorkBench 3.1 guide; a software bundle: Digita Wordworth v4SE — a publishing system; Digita Print Manager v1.2SE — a powerful print-support program; Digita Organizer v1.1 — a notebook/planner Digita Datastore v1.1 — a database program; TurboCalc v3.5 — a spreadsheet program; Personal Paint v6.4 — a powerful graphics editor; Photogenics v1.2SE — an image-editing program; Pinball Mania — a game, a great pinball title; Whizz — a game, a 3D platformer; booklets with detailed descriptions of the included software; a 6-month warranty. Why I wrote that the A1200+1230/50MHz+8MB fast costs $669. I'd really love for that to be our actual pricing policy, but unfortunately it doesn't quite work out that way yet. The thing is, I used a used A1200 as the basis for that price. So the price with a brand-new A1200 in the bundle would be: $499 (A1200) + $220 (1230) + $49 (8MB) = $768 — that is, $100 more. Yes, we do sell "hard drives," including ones with the OS already installed and configured and loaded up with software. But if you think you couldn't hook up a drive, format it, and install the OS yourself, you're seriously mistaken. First of all, everything you need for that comes standard with the AMIGA 1200 MAGIC package; second, once you've bought an Amiga, remember you're dealing with a platform that works for you, not the other way around. So partitioning the drive, formatting it, and installing the OS is all extremely simple — even someone who's never touched a computer in their life could manage it. Plus, when you change your configuration, you won't need to reinstall the system from scratch — new resources get recognized and used by the system automatically. Whether the power supply can handle it. The official power supply that comes with the A1200 MAGIC bundle can run the computer itself, any accelerator, and a 3.5" hard drive. If you use a 2.5" drive instead of a 3.5" one, the power supply can additionally handle a CD-ROM drive or another 3.5" drive. In other cases it's better to use an additional power supply, or just swap in a PC-style one instead of the "stock" one, like a lot of people do. But there are exceptions: for instance, my own power supply runs the Amiga, an accelerator, two 3.5" drives, and a 5.25" FDD! The 030/50 accelerator takes a 68882 math co-processor at 50MHz, but it's only really needed for users doing computer graphics work — rendering, ray tracing, and so on — since it gives roughly a sixfold speed boost for those processes. Otherwise it's not needed, since it's largely unused in games, demos, or most system software. Upgrading Amiga floppy drives to HD is done here in Moscow by a company called KONDOR — that procedure costs them $12. You can also skip modifying the built-in drive and just buy an additional external one. An external 5.25" HD drive connects using a similar setup, which you can actually find over Fido. But in practice, all these upgrades are pretty much completely unnecessary, since it's a lot simpler and faster to just unplug the drive, bring it over to a friend's place, hook it up to the bus, and copy over whatever you need. Not elegant, but cheap, reliable, and practical! Besides, the AMIGA reads hard drives formatted for PC just fine. I, for one, never bothered modifying my own drive. That's just an external "HD-style" drive at 1.76MB. The thing is, the AMIGA formats DD disks at 880KB, and HD disks at 880 x 2 = 1.76MB. External drives for the AMIGA are currently made by KONDOR, and we get ours from them for resale. So we carry the same drives at the same price as KONDOR. Naturally you can use a CD-ROM drive on the AMIGA to listen to music CDs. Naturally you can also play back both audio and video MPEG on the AMIGA. With software decoding you can play MPEG at around 10 frames per second, but with a hardware MPEG decoder you can watch video CDs smoothly with no loss of quality. You can trade in a used AMIGA 600 + 20MB HDD for a brand-new AMIGA 1200 MAGIC at our company with a $369 top-up payment. By the way, if you're planning to come buy some Amigas, it's a good idea to give me advance notice and call me at home, since otherwise there might not be enough accelerators or computers to go around for everyone! I can't send you the exact list of all XTM members yet, since it's not fully finalized, but here's a rough one: EXTREME: ZX division LooKER - general organizer Exploder - regional organizer John Coder - regional organizer +-> MAGIC SOFT: LooKER - organizer/supplier/trader/coder Tracer - artist Visual - musician Mac Buster - main coder/supplier Slider - idea maker Monk - coder Xpeh - musician +-> MEGACODE: Exploder - organizer/coder ???? - graphician +-> BEERMANS: John Coder - organizer/coder Ashnar - musician Dwarf - artist/supplier Well, that's about it, I think. The attached disk has a file with this letter, the EXTREME logo, E97inv.W — an invitation to Enlight'97, and other stuff. Thanks again for the letter! Bye! Best regards, LooKER/MS!/XTM date: 30.05.97 // // rulez forever! P.S.: No offense meant, but I'd suggest picking yourself a proper new nickname/handle — "M.M.A." sounds kind of childish... 107082, Moscow, Perevedenovsky Lane, bldg. 12, apt. 87. Moskalev Viktor Vladimirovich (095) 267-6976, after 21:00 Moscow time