CompuServe Messages

Whether there is a viable future for a revived Amiga remains an open question. And I am as big an Amiga fan as anyone. As one Video Toaster dealer told me though, you can't take a year off from the computer business. Amiga animators seem very interested in Alpha machines. The DraCo has a 32-bit slot for a future Alpha co-processor. Video Toaster folks might gravitate towards NewTek's new VT for Windows (although at $9995 it isn't the Toaster we knew). But as a portable digital field recorder, essentially a Flyer system which runs in batteries, it is a industry first. As for the VLab Motion: The Draco is designed to run that system, and it uses good old AmigaDOS. You won't have to buy 32 MB of RAM just to multitask on NT! Hard to say in this industry, but it looks like it could be around for a while. Apparently a lot of companies who used to make expensive black box systems which had Amigas hidden inside have approached MacroSystems wanting to buy its Amiga-clone processing card as an OEM part. This could help finance the DraCo standalone. I've been promised one of the five prototypes to play with this summer, at that point we'll know more. John Spofford Computer Video PS: The Play Inc. folks in California (ex-NewTek, Digital Creations and Progressive Image) are trying to make a Pentium as video friendly as the Amiga. My best guess it will take them a year. But what they've shown so far is very impressive. They scared the pants off a lot of large video companies at NAB. I'll be visiting in a couple of weeks, should be interesting.