Portal customers have access to FTP, a protocol for transferring files at high speeds over the Internet; Telnet, a program that allows users to “log in” to a machine connected to the Internet, and Internet Relay Chat, a real-time conferencing system with as many as 700 people logged in at once, world-wide.

Portal is the only world-wide information system to offer flat-rate access to the Internet. For the low monthly price of $13.95, anyone with a computer and a modem can become a Portal subscriber. Internet access is an additional $5 monthly. Portal can be reached around the world via Sprintnet and Tymnet, direct dial, and the Internet with the Telnet protocol.

Portal is waiving the $5 Internet Services fee during the month of July. In the communications business since 1986, Portal is well-established on the networks providing commercial UUCP connections and newsfeeds.

Portal recently acquired a 5-gigabyte archive, the world’s largest. In addition, Portal is home to the AmigaZone, over 700 megs of Amiga files and the entire Fred Fish disk collection.

By Brian Fudge, Portal Communications Company

Campbell reports directly to Commodore International’s Director of Worldwide Software Engineering, Ned McCook. “John is well prepared for his new role,” said McCook. “His depth of product knowledge combined with his management skills and respect for our developers will help strengthen Commodore’s relationship with our development community.”

A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania with degrees in technology management and computer science, Campbell has held a number of key development positions within Commodore since joining the company in 1982. He assisted in the launch of the VIC-20 and Commodore 64 computers and is one of the people responsible for the tremendous software support they received from developers, which led to the success of both products.

Since 1985, Campbell has concentrated on bringing high quality, diverse products to market for the company’s line of Amiga computers. A major highlight is AmigaVision, , for which he headed the team that
defined the need for an authoring system that would take more advantage of all the multimedia features and advanced image editing features of the Amiga. You can see some of the works at pictures.n3po.com. AmigaVision has won a number of industry awards and is broadly used by multimedia developers worldwide.

This position announcement coincides with moving the CATS group into Commodore’s Engineering division. “This change will help strengthen ties between Commodore’s development efforts and the work of our developers,” noted Campbell. “We will now be in a better position to move our proprietary technology forward quickly so that Commodore can continue to provide leading edge hardware at affordable prices.”

Commodore International, through its worldwide operations, is one of the world’s leading producers of computer-based consumer and business products.

Commodore (R), CDTV (R), VIC-20 (R), Commodore 64 (R) and AmigaVision are trademarks of Commodore Electronics Limited. Amiga is a trademark of Commodore-Amiga Inc.

Denny adds: “That’s the info from a book catalog. What I’ve tried to include in my BEST AMIGA TIPS AND SECRETS book are solutions to the problems that plague Amiga users the most; tips on optimizing
your system; ways to make your Amiga more powerful and flexible without going into debt; and handy hints on the best ways to expand your Amiga. I’m hoping that this will be the kind of useful
reference book that you’ll keep next to your Amiga at all times. It’s been a lot of hard work, but I’m proud of what I’ve put together, and I hope you’ll all enjoy it. I just still wonder if I should have called it STUPID AMIGA TRICKS instead. [grin] And remember, every copy sold helps keep Bill, the World’s Largest Housecat, happy and well fed.”

By Denny Atkin

Gold Disk announced a major upgrade to Professional Draw, their award winning structured drawing program for the Commodore Amiga personal computer.

“Professional Draw 3.0 represents the next step in the evolution of desktop publishing” explains Kailash Ambwani, president of Gold Disk Inc. “The direct link with Professional Page 3.0 gives the graphic designer a totally integrated DTP environment, the Genie functions automate most of the routine tasks associated with design and layout, and the comprehensive support of ARexx allows the user to create
dynamic links to hundreds of currently available software packages.” Professional Draw 3.0 includes a dynamic hot link to Professional Page 3.0 allowing structured drawings to be automatically transferred
between programs for editing or placement within a document.

At the heart of the new version are more than 30 automatic functions or “Genies”, facilitating fast and effortless creation of professional quality artwork.

Function Genies automate many routine design tasks. Functions include object style tags, allowing the creation of multiple objects with matching attributes, automatic Avery label creation, color to black and white or gray scale conversion, precision object alignment and distribution, scaling of grouped objects and a hot link to ASDG’s Art Department Professional.

Tool Genies modify the operation of Professional Draw’s tool buttons. Rectangles with user definable rounded corners, ellipses with user definable height and width and polygons with any number of sides may be created. Objects may be grouped based on their attributes using the marquee Genie.

Using over 275 ARexx commands included with Version 3.0, users may customize Professional draw by editing any of the included tool or function Genies or creating Genies of their own. Possible functions
include hot links to any ARexx compatible program.

Professional Draw 3.0 includes several text handling enhancements. Text is now typed directly on the page and may be edited on the page as well. Improved typographic controls include line spacing, variable character aspect ratios, and user definable X-Y bolding. Text objects may also be grouped by line for easier justification. Version 3.0 implements the latest version of AGFA Compugraphics Bullet font scaling technology and can use the same font files as Professional Page 3.0. Adobe Type 1 fonts are also supporting using the included font manager utility.

Color handling in Version 3.0 has also been improved. Linear and radial gradient fills may be created with user definable centers and angles. Colors may be specified as PANTONE, RGB, or CMYK. A clean
palette feature deletes all unused colors from the palette. IFF bitmaps and EPS files imported into version 3.0 may now be scaled, cropped or rotated. 24 Bit IFF images are also supported.

New output features in Professional Draw 3.0 include enhanced color separation and under color removal algorithms, auto-tiling for output of larger pages, landscape printing on dot matrix printers, adjustable dot matrix page offset, and adjustable HPGL scaling and page offset.

The included Auto Trace utility has also been enhanced with improved contour generation algorithms and no limit on bitmap size.

Other new features include undo, redo, and the ability to display individual objects in wireframe or WYSIWYG mode.

Professional Draw 3.0 includes a collection of 145 pieces of high quality clip art. Also included is a Clipmap utility allowing structured drawing clips to be converted to IFF bitmaps.

Professional Draw 3.0 will run on any Amiga with at least 2 MB of RAM and a hard disk drive and is Workbench 2.0 compatible. Professional Draw 3.0 will be available in late June, with a suggested
retail price of $199.95.

By Mike Iampietro, Gold Disk Inc.

Last year’s high point was CDTV and this year a new Amiga model will be unveiled at the show. A number of manufacturers also plan to release new products at the show.

Opal Technology is a new company (it wasn’t even in business a year ago) that has a range of video processing equipment for use in budget-priced but full-featured video special effects systems for production houses and TV stations. It claims a full system, including Amiga, can be assembled for around US$6000.

The seminar sessions include new users, education, desktop publishing, desktop video, electronic art and future directions of computing. There is no extra charge for these sessions (entrance to the show is AUS$9 per adult).

Following the success last year where one vendor sold almost half a million dollars worth of product at a “shop within a show,” a number of retailers will be at this show with “specials.”

By Paul Zucker & Wendy Giles

Gold Disk Inc. announced immediate availability of a major upgrade to Professional Page, their award winning desktop publishing program for the Commodore Amiga personal computer.

“Version 3.0 represents a major breakthrough in the evolution of desktop publishing” explains Kailash Ambwani, president of Gold Disk Inc. “Most of the routine tasks associated with page layout are now
completely automatic, freeing the designer to concentrate on the creative aspects of his work.”

The new version incorporates more than 30 automatic functions or “Genies”, facilitating fast and effortless creation of professional quality documents.

By selecting “Create Page From Genie”, users can quickly and easily create page layouts and designs. Requesters allow the user to select the layout type, page size, columns, margins and other specifications. In addition, users may choose from advanced features including line drawing and placement, address printing and text importing. Professional Page 3.0 will then generate a complete page layout based on the users specifications. A variety of different layout styles may be created, including newsletters, brochures, advertisements, and flyers.

Function genies automate many routine desktop publishing operations. Functions include push button envelope addressing, automatic mail merge from an external database, and automatic grid and table creation. Text formatting functions include automatic drop caps, automatic drop shadows, automatic small caps, and automatic sub and super scripts.

Using over 300 ARexx commands included with version 3.0, users may customize Professional Page by creating their own Genie functions. Possible functions include hot links to databases or spreadsheets,
batch printing, or automatic graphic sizing and placement. Other new features include irregular text wrap, an undo button, enhanced color separation and under color removal algorithms, auto-tiling for output of larger pages, and text import filters for most popular word processors including ProWrite, Excellence, and QuickWrite.

Professional Page 3.0 includes 5 new AGFA Compugraphic scalable outline typefaces, for a total of 7 typefaces. Adobe Type 1 fonts are also supported and all fonts can be scaled in increments of 0.125 points. Graphic handling will be enhanced with a hot link to Professional Draw 3.0 making it possible to export a structured drawing to Professional Draw, edit the drawing and return it to Professional Page.
Professional Draw 3.0 will be available later this year.

Professional Page 3.0 will run on any Amiga with at least 2 MB of AM and a hard disk drive and is Workbench 2.0 compatible. Professional Page 3.0 is available now, with a suggested retail price of $295.00.

By Mike Iampietro, Gold Disk Inc.

The viewer can watch the 50 minute movie from beginning to end or jump directly to any of twelve different sections within the movie. In addition, dozens of insightful discussions and additional color images of famous spacecraft and their missions are only the touch of a button away. NASA…The 25th Year is designed to display properly on both NTSC and PAL television screens.

Comments: I received a copy of this CDTV title from Troika today. You can look forward to seeing a full review of it in my column in an upcoming issue of .info Magazine. It’s VERY well done and the low price makes it extremely attractive.

This is the first actual release CDXL CDTV title I’ve seen. Interesting stuff.

By Stephen Ritchie, Troika Multimedia Inc.

This new model is only 35cms wide and 24cms deep, but manages to pack a lot into its small size. This has been achieved by redesigning the keyboard and omitting the numeric keypad found on the right hand side of the A500 and A500 Plus, as well as taking advantage of advances in technology to reduce the size of the motherboard.

Despite its smaller footprint, there is still room for a 2.5-inch hard disk drive to be mounted internally.

The A600 uses the Motorola 68000 CPU running at 7 MHz. Either 512KB or 1MB of RAM can be placed on the motherboard, and a further 1MB can he added by installing the A601 memory expansion unit in the trapdoor slot underneath the machine.

Since the A600 is fitted with the 8375 Fat Agnus chip, all of this 2MB can be chip RAM, available to the co-processors. An 8373 Denise chip is also used to give extra display modes. Additionally,
an enhanced version of the 5719 Gary chip, called Gayle, has been fitted which supports the I/O card interface and the IDE Hard Drive interface.

Version 2 of the Kickstart is held on a 512K ROM and Workbench 2.05 is provided on floppy disks. An IDE hard disk drive controller is also included as standard. There is no expansion slot on the left side of the machine. This has been replaced by a slot which will accept credit-card style memory cards (PCMCIA/IEDA standard). As on the A500s, an 880K floppy disk drive is housed on the right side of the computer. A full complement of interfaces has been provided on the back: serial and parallel; external disk drive; stereo audio, RGB video, composite video, and an RF modulator for connection to the antenna input of a television set. This last was available only as an optional extra on the A500 and was fitted externally.

Mouse and joystick interfaces are to be found on the right side of the machine, next to the disk drive.

By Peter Jones and Dirk Verhetsel
Commodore Belgium

The First Prize winner will receive the “Ultimate Commodore Amiga 3000 System” featuring an Amiga 3000 with 5MB, 100 MB hard drive ($4146), Amiga 1950 multisync monitor ($695), G-force 040 accelerator
($2799) and Impact Vision 24 video/graphics board ($2199) from Great Valley Products, Personal single frame controller from Nucleus Electronics ($425), and Caligari Broadcast 2.1 3-D animation and rendering software from Octree ($1995).

The Second Prize package includes the Harlequin 2000 32- bit Frame Buffer from the Amiga Centre Scotland ($2100), TVPaint from Tecsoft, France ($1500), V-Lab video digitizer from MacroSystem, Germany ($450) and Will Vinton’s 3-D Animation from Cineplay ($499.95). The Third Prize package is Digital Creation’s DCTV ($499.95) and Progressive Peripheral’s 3-D Pro 2.0 ($399.95).

In addition the First, Second and Third place winners will receive Virtual Reality Lab’s VistaPro 2.0 with MakePath and TerraForm landscape generators ($149.95) and Progressive Peripheral’s Animation
Station utility software ($49.95). The next ten winners will receive: DevWare’s 25 best Video/Graphics public domain disks ($98.75), Progressive Peripheral’s Diskmaster ($49.95) and the AmigaWorld 3-D
Library ($89.95).

Contest entries should be directed to: Tim Walsh, AmigaWorld Magazine, 80 Elm St, Peterborough, NH 03458. Entries must be submitted on floppy disk with full loading instructions and a 1/2″ or 3/4″ review
copy, preferably NTSC. Animations will have a maximum length of 3 minutes. They will be judged on a basis of content and technical expertise. Deadline for entries is October 15, 1992. Winners will be
announced in the February 1993 issue of AmigaWorld. Animation Video Volume One and Volume Two, compilations of earlier contests, are available through TechMedia Video. According to Lynn Lagasse, Video Products Manager, “these videos display some of the most unique animations created by the most talented and well-known Amiga artists and in turn, will fascinate, entertain and inspire viewers.”

TechMedia Video will produce Animation Video Volume III at it’s new state-of-the-art, in-house production facility. Work is currently being completed on the first of a three part video series, “How To
Animate I”, scheduled for release in March 1992. This will be followed by the release of “The History of the Amiga” in April 1992. TechMedia also distributes animation, instruction and tutorial videotapes for
third party vendors such as Miramar and Razza Video USA.

TechMedia is a division of IDG Communications, the world’s leader in information technology. IDG publishes over 150 publications in 50 countries, including such titles as AmigaWorld, MacWorld, PC World, ComputerWorld and InfoWorld.

Written by Tim Walsh

If people ask you how they were done, you can tell them they were designed with Deluxe Paint(tm) IV on an Amiga 2000 computer!

Created by Computer Artist Julie Petersen, we hope these crests (besides being neat) will heighten awareness of the Amiga and give an attractive, professional image of the machine.

Looking for a fund-raising idea for your users’ group? We can print a special batch with your user group initials just above the ‘m’ in Amigan, or to the left and just below the checkmark. Call us about custom orders on quantities of 50 or more.

Want to see what they look like? Well, we tried getting a good picture with a digitizer, but even in HAM, the photo didn’t begin to do the embroidery justice. The colors are much cleaner and ‘snappier’ than the enclosed ILBM file indicates, but at least you can get an idea of what they look like.

The price for individual orders is $7.95 ($6.95 + $1.00 S&H) available through select dealers or from:

Classic Concepts, PO Box 786, Bellingham, WA 98227-0786
Specialists in microcomputers and graphics-related products including fonts, clipart, graphics utilities, etc.

Amiga is a registered trademark of Commodore-Amiga Deluxe Paint is a trademark of Electronic Arts
Also available through BFJ Enterprises