#WOA-NYC Report
84 messages in this thread
World of Amiga NYC Show Report.
The best way to describe this show was a fair reversal of what Amiga
shows were some years ago. Shows of yesteryear suffered from a good
vendor presence, but low fan counts. This show was quite the
opposite – one of the most crowded in a while, but there was little
on the floor.
The show consisted of about 30 booths, of which many were mail order
vendors. As a result, it was more like a flea market, and less like
a computer show.
To put it plainly: there was little of note to see.
Of what little there was, here is what was interesting:
* The 4000T. Yup, it exists, although CBM did not turn it on. Specs
that I was able to get include two video slots (although the machine
I saw only had one installed, with the other simply a motherboard
screen), Fast SCSI-2 *and* IDE on the motherboard, and what is
possibly the most attractive case that every housed a CBM computer.
Memory? CPU speed? Price? Availability? Couldn't get the CBM rep to
say. DSP? No one there would acknowledge whether it really exists,
although one rep said that it would come on a separate expansion
board. I hope that this is wrong, since it will be a *bad* idea (due
to the lack of slots in the 4000 series machines).
* The 4091. Yup, I saw it, and it looks clean and ready to go. It
seems to be pretty quick too, and it if is the same design as what is
in the 4000T, it will do up to 10 megabytes/second transfer rate.
Quite a screamer, indeed.
* 4000/030. Not only being shown, but on sale. The show price was
about $1800, which is simply (IMHO) too high.
* MPEG technology demonstration. Probably the highlight of the show.
A stock 4000/030 playing a Bon Jovi music video either full screen,
or in a window (but not scaled). Video was coming out of a card (not
sure if it was Zorro or a video slot card). Frame rate was a true
30FPS, and the quality was fairly high (looked like good VHS or
better, although there was some visible artifacting). The rep
basically called this a non-product right now, however. The 3-4
minute video took up 52 megs, and was compressed using a 45:1 ratio.
The experimental board, the rep said, supported up to 10:1
compression, which would be broadcastable (or beyond).
They are working on getting the video to scale in a window, and
possibly, for aquisition (although I think that they should leave that
to third party hardware…some folks will simply want it to make
MPEGs out of 24-bit frames). Perhaps more interesting was the fact
that the video actually fit in the workbench video, unlike the IV-24,
where it never seems to be positioned quite right.
* OpalVision demo. Yup, they had the crowd eating out of their hand
in a big way. Seems that Opal is going to be the initial winner in
the 24-bit wars; they are promising to ship the remaining modules
within 90 days. Additionally, those who buy the mainboard before the
modules ship will be entitled to some healthy discounts on the
modules.
The boards were being sold at a very healthy discount, below what
dealers usually pay for them. Amigaman will have Opalvisions at $695
until 4/10 (at least, if they do not sell out at the show), when the
price goes back up. Due to the competition, you can get the card
somewhat cheaper than that at the show (and save tax and shipping, to
boot).
* Bridgeboard madness. They were going like hotcakes for less than
$200, the 386sx-25mhz. Strong rumor has it that CBM is abandoning
the market for the third party.
* Gold Disk was showing their revision to ProCalc, version 2.0. If
the look of the program means anything, Excel has nothing on this
revision. Plus, they are (I believe I heard correctly) upgrading
registered users of 1.0 for FREE. All three members of the demo
audience were quite impressed. Graphs looked good, too.
* Migraph was showing a color handscanner, with a top res of 200 DPI
with 256K colors, or 400 DPI in either 64 shade grey or mono.
Software looked really good, too.
Big disappointments:
* GVP had nothing new in their booth (well, they were showing expansion
for the 1200, but nothing surpising).
* Many 'standard' vendors did not show up, including Electronic Arts,
NewTek, Impulse, Progressive, etc.
* Some moron crashed the only showing of the new Retina card, so I
could not compare it to the Opalvision. I saw it running Workbench
at high res for a few minutes…then the big dummy tried to bring
Workbench up at the stupid resolution of 3300×400. Like, there might
be a monitor anywhere to support that…*DUH*
Other points of interest:
* ASDG showed a demo tape of Morph Plus in the Micropace booth. Most
impressive morphing I've seen to date.
* CBM reps say that Ethernet cards are coming (again), they were
delayed due to a change in manufacturing location.
* Dave Cinege was at a booth (for Elite MicroComputers). He is
apparently a young snotnose, not the old crotchety fart I though he
was. With the cheap bridgeboards in abundance, his booth was getting
little response (while I was there). No FCC officers where seen
lurking around, however. 🙂
* Utilities Unlimited was talking up their upcoming PCMCIA card for
Mac emulation on the 1200. Their product looked great in the booth,
but I know better…:)
Any questions? If you are looking for hardware, and you live within
a hour of NYC, get to this show. Bargains abounded.
I think the comments about Dave Cinage were probably somewhere
between "uncalled for" and "irrelevant". Other than that, thanks for
the report. :^)
You are completely correct…the comments about Dave were pretty
sophmoric. Just couldn't resist. Hope you don't think less of me.
Yeah, they weren't nice at all. Especially considering the nasty
things people say about you, you old grouch! <trying to grin and
duck at the same time .. good thing I'm not chewing gum>
YAh, yah. :^)
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
Utilities Ulimited's Emplant looked good in thier booth but, YOU know
better? Well since I own one and it is working exactly (if not
better than, since I'm running system 7.1 and they were running 7.0,
and I have a CD-Rom hooked upto my 4000's Emplant) as thiers was then
I know even better than you I guess (that's if your trying to say
that the product isn't as good as they were showing, wich it is).
Yeah, I do know better, Ben. Here is what I know better than the
other folks that at the show that don't own the Emplant:
* Emplant seems to have trouble with some machines…I get some weird
behavior on my machine, but not all the time. There are *still*
folks that cannnot get anywhere with the Emplant.
* There is simply no way to use the machine with a Mac DD floppy.
Sybil is iffy, even to simply convert the disk. HD support is a
recent event.
* Features that were promised long ago are quite slow to appear. What
happened to third party display device support, for instance? How
about Appletalk support from the Amiga side? Still waiting…
* Multitasking is all but useless on less capable machines than your
4000, due to memory and CPU requirements. Just getting the Mac
startup-screen on my '030 2000, with 8 megs 32-bit RAM, slowed things
on the Amiga side to a crawl.
So, Ben, it ain't all roses in Emplant land…at least not like Jim
Drew and company were making it out to be. Emplant is *not* plug and
play, like Amax devices tend to be.
What version of the software are you using? High density support is three weeks
old and I've set up Emplants on other machines too as early as 4 revisions ago
of the software (A2000's with GVP's old 28MHZ accelerator),and it actually did
multitask well. They've had serial support for the Amiga side since the
beginning and true Appletalk isn't there yet, but if asked Jim and Joe will
tell you the exact priority of projects being worked on, as far as promises go
Jim had promised me A4000 support within 2 weeks of him getting an A4000, when
they got thier machine they posted it in two days. Comparing Emplant to Amax is
an intersting comparison, especially when you look at Amaxes history, things
have moved along a lot faster in Emplant land then they happened on the Amax
front but it is true that Amax *is* more stable but you have to look at how
long it took to get there, and that Amax is no where near as ambitious as
Emplant even in it's current mode. Their time table as it stands now with the
Emplant is 1.32 bit clean, 2.file transfer to and from the Mac/Amiga sides,
3.Sound, 4.Graphic boards support (after all what good is extra graphic support
unless everything else is in place? Although DMI support is close.) Jim and Joe
are human and true not everything works in all environments the way they'd like
(for instance my sybil hated my jobs machine rev 6.0 A2000 but loved my home
rev 6.1 A2000) but I've found them extreamly helpful, and as with anything
people do have to pay close attension to the updates they provide (wich are
very frequent BTW).
Ben, Leigh's Computers
Jonathan,
Lew Eggebrecht talked in detail about a lot of this stuff. The A4000T
has a 25MHz 040, same memory setup as the A4000/040. Availability in
a couple of months.
The DSP board is now going to be on a Zorro III card. There were a
number of reasons for this, but primarily they discovered that by
putting it on a card with its own memory its performance would be
nearly doubled. And they get an additional speedup since they can run
it at 66MHz instead of 50MHz that way. BTW, they FINALLY publicly
admitted it was the AT&T DSP3210!
I couldn't believe how many Opalvisions I saw selling.
Commodore is NOT getting out of the Bridgeboard business. That's
someone's guess that has been getting too much credit. What happened
was simply a major overstock situation, and they're blowing out the
inventory at a very low price. Commodore's marketing dept. assured me
that the Bridgeboard is very important to them strategically and they
will most definitely NOT be getting out of the business. If you want
one cheap, get it soon, as the price will go back up.
>>He is apparently a young snotnose
Do you talk about people in front of them this way in real life, or
just online?
What kind of software support for the DSP card will there be?
Is C= going to take the same attitude they apparently are about their
MPEG technology – "the stuff's there, someone'll write somethin for
it"? They should add OS support now and bring developers on board.
But then who ever heard of C= doing something that would actually do
them some good.
The AAA Amigas will apparently be a complete break,
architecturally and philosophically from current Amigas, and
supposedly everything else, but why couldn't they provide some sort
of upgrade path to allow people to at least run some of their old
Amiga software on the new machines? Unix people all over the land are
starting to incorporate the ability to run Windows programs under
their OS on all kinds of different RISC platforms. Not that Windows
is such great shakes, but millions of people buy stuff for it.
Does anyone have any operating specs on the AT&T DSP chip? I
had read that Motorola's better DSP was the best on the market. Why
AT&T?
Anyway, if they don't get some serious OS and third-party
support fast, the DSP will become the sound version of all the
third-party video boards for Amigas – supported by a few specific
products like ADPro but basically useless for most people doing most
things.
Actually, even if AGA is pretty much the endpoint of Amigas as
we know them – even with enhancements and cleanups – shouldn't it be
easier to make video boards that are more widely useful, now that the
custom chips have a true-color pallatte?
Oh well. What we need is a miracle. Maybe we could arrange
for Bill Gates to have a religious experience – see the light,
renounce Windows, DOS, clones, Windows NT, and give all his money to
C=. Probably as likely as me inheriting 50 million dollars and
becoming a real estate mogul.
Please, someone, tell me.
Concerning the DSP:
The DSP is it's own processor. The software that runs "on" the
processor is native to it. In other words, the tools for the DSP
supposedly already exist. All that needs to be done is that the
interface for these pre-existing tools be written for the Amiga
environment, which is a comparatively simple task. I believe CBM is
actively doing this.
In other words, don't worry. There should be an impressive
collection of useful tools for the DSP available when the DSP itself
is ready to go. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if the hardware
was ready to go, and could have been shipped by now, but the software
is what is holding it up.
Of course, none of this is official, it's just what I've heard from
my own sources.
What kind of "things" will the DSP board be able to do?
–Paul < Motorola Inside >
Paul…
The DSP is theoretically capable of many things. For example, it can be a
digital sound sampler/processor capable of sampling and processing digital
audio at CD rates in excess of 44 kHz.
The DSP could be used to generate more realistic voice than what the Amiga
can currently do on it's own. Apparently there is a library of established
algorythms which makes this possible, I'm not sure exactly how that works.
It could also act as a graphics processor of sorts, but I don't know if
that's a direction that is going to be taken.
Apparently a DSP also has the ability to be used as a modem, but I'm not
sure how that works either. There are probably a LOT of things it can do, since
it's a real serious device. I guess we'll see. 🙂
Jim
Please!! Does anyone have a transcript of Eggebrechts' speach at WOCA?
I missed it. Not that the transcript of his Nov92 speach seems to have been
worth all that much, but I'd love to read one.
Paul
That's quite a handful of potential chores.
–Paul < Motorola Inside >
Telecomm modems; Other modems (fax, old and new flavours); graphics
co-processing; sound filtering; sound efx generation (echo, flange, etc);
basically you can think of it as a general purpose microprocessor that's
quite fast. Some DSP's are less "general" than others, but most can be
made to do almost anything, right up to and including accounting software.
:^)
Odds are *very* good that CBM's DSP will end up as a graphics co-pro,
btw.
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
The DSP chip can be used for video or sound processing. It can also act
as a voice or modem device.
-Jonathan
I'm hoping that Denny got the part number wrong (and according to my
Devcon notes and other proprietary materials, he did). If the DSP is
indeed the Western Electric DSP32010 — it runs circles around
Motorola's latest.
Ah… It could indeed be 32010–Eggebrecht said 3210 and I haven't
had a chance to reference my DevCon notes yet. BUT–it's definitely
an AT&T part.
Denny,
Well, technically, it's a Western Electric part.
Time to rethink some of your market perceptions… You're accusing
Commodore of a lot of negatives that aren't true.
Commodore's currently working hard to get a development environment
going on MPEG. Take a look at MPEG technology and you'll discover
that there's almost no editing/authoring software available.
Commodore's working hard to arrange to make a suite of tools
available, otherwise they could toss the card on the market now and
say "have fun." But MPEG authoring is an entirely new technology, and
they're working on getting things set up.
As for the DSP, it's coming with a full set of support programs, its
own operating system, and AT&T's entire suite of development tools is
being ported to the board as we speak. The floating-point DSP3210 is
MUCH more sophisticated than the fixed-point Motorola DSPs a number
of machines are currently using. You can get specifications from AT&T
or through Commodore's developer program.
You're completely off-base on the Advanced Chipset machines. They've
got entirely new capabilities, but they'll be software compatible
with previous machines. (Except for programs that break the rules,
and even those will work whenever possible.)
If Commodore ever does go to a RISC machine, they'll include 680×0
emulation, I'm sure.
Anyway, I don't know where you've gotten much of this information,
but you'll be happy to know that your fears are unfounded.
As far as MPEG and the DSP, I was just shooting in the dark based on
what limited info I got at the WOA show in NY. MPEG is new, and I am
incredibly happy about C='s MPEG technology. But I specifically asked the C=
guy showing the board about software support, and he specifically said, to me
and other people, that they were just doing the board and that they expected
people would write software pretty quickly once it was released. Maybe C='s
left hand doesn't know where its right hand is – I guess I hope so, strange as
that is – but that's what I heard.
But for the Advanced ChipSet, or AAA, or whatever, machines, I had a 25
minute discussion with a C= rep who was at the 4000T at WOA, and he gave me
what I posted. I think emulation would be great. I think the PowerPC chip is
the way to go – the first one will be really really fast, will be available at
about the same time as the 060, and has a future. The 060 is the last 0x0 chip.
The big problem I see is not the machines and the technology. AGA may
not be exactly the leading edge, but it's good, and there's still stuff that
can only be done on Amigas. But MPEG is the wave of the future, and other MPEG
solutions will be developed. People's attitudes in general seem to be "if I
can do it on Windows (or maybe a Mac) I'll do it on Windows (or a Mac) even if
I have to take a small performance and functionality hit" so C= and Amiga
developers have two battles to fight – to develope technology, and to attract
people to develope technology.
I know how difficult this is, because I work at a company that is
developing in-house applications for OS/2. (NMF – they had PCs before I got
there.) Hard as it is to believe because it comes from Big Blue, OS/2 is kind
of the Amiga of the PC world. Bill Gates wants it dead, no one takes it
seriously, and most people develope for it as an afterthough if they develope
for it at all, even though it's vastly superiour to Windows and DOS. It
probably will take the same kind of route as the Amiga – it started out (with
release 2.0) with some great things that no one else has, but it will never
quite catch on in all areas well enough for those advantages to be maintained
and enhanced. Other solutions to the same problems will be offered, no matter
how kludgy, that work in Windows, and people will be satisfied with Windows.
And worse, the great new directions taken by OS/2 – and Amigas – will be
abandoned in the main stream world – in favour of the officially sanctioned
kludges.
But the Amiga still does have a future.
I do believe that.
Paul
Paul,
If you talked to the same guy I did demoing the MPEG board that I did on
Friday then I would not worry too much about his comments. When asked
about C='s new display enhancer for the 4000 he told me that he was just a
"product demonstrator" hired by C= for the show.
…AutoPilot Engaged…
-Paul-
Paul,
Ah. You have to realize that for some reason Commodore pulls people out of
the nether regions of the company, people who know almost nothing about
what's going on, and for some reason makes those people the ones to
interface with the public at shows. 🙁 Lew Eggebrecht told what was
really going on during his keynote on Friday, and that includes
development of a complete authoring setup–otherwise they'd just put the
board out now.
…Denny
Denny,
Thanks for the good information on the 4000T and DSP board.
>>Do you talk about people in front of them this way in real life, or just
online?
Sorry Denny; I would have said this directly to Dave, but I was afraid of
getting sued 🙂
Jonathan, via AutoPilot // Entombed in ice
\\// and snow in Albany, NY
Some other details that I got after the show, mostly from a dealer
friend of mine (who will go nameless).
* The 4000T got fired up at the show due to crowd pressure at one
point. It booted, and ran some software, and was turned off shortly
afterwards.
* The 4000/030 is being positioned in a weird way. My dealer friend
told me that upon returning home, he talked to his CBM rep.
It seems that although the 4000/040 is easy to get, the /030
is in very short supply (more so than the 1200). Also, the rep told
him the he would do best to price the /030 at $1999, which stikes me
as pretty stupid.
He'll do one for me for under $1800, although I think that the
price is still way too high. Hopefully, CBM will meet its /040
quotas, and drop the price of the '030 AGA machines. Priced at $1500
or below, the machine would really have legs.
Denny,
I hope you mean it's a WE DSP32010 — not the 3210 — that is an _old_ DSP
and very incapable by today's standards.
-sja
GVP had nothing new in their booth? Expansion for the A1200 nothing
surprising? GVP is the ONLY company *SHIPPING* an accelerator for the A1200!
We had a machine setup with our A1230 Turbo+ with 32MB of 32-bit RAM installed
and it actually outperformed an A4000/040 in some AIBB benchmarks. That's
certainly something to be surprised about!
G-Lock, our genlock that we were demonstrating at the show, is now far and away
the best selling genlock for the Amiga, and it is the ONLY genlock with both
video and audio features.
Our PhonePak demonstration would make any Amiga owner proud! We had three
PhonePak boards installed in an A3000T with three phones connected and active.
People could walk up and call the PhonePak system, listen to information, and
record messages. As if that weren't enough, we were running a multimedia Scala
presentation (audio, animations, still-pictures, etc.) on the same machine,
running without a single problem, even when callers were using the phones to
access the VoiceMail features! *** ONLY AMIGA MAKES IT POSSIBLE! ***
We gave away FREE demonstration versions of our powerful ImageFX image
processing package to hundreds of people and clearly showed why it is the best
image processing package for the Amiga. It is also the ONLY program with image
preview at all times, full painting capability, virtual memory built-in,
morphing module, and scanner modules bundled in the main package!
We were also showing the new 2.0 version of the IV24 package, which now
includes the full-blown Caligari24, a massively upgraded MacroPaint, myLAD
transistion switching software, and Desktop Darkroom image capture and
processing software.
——————————————————————————-
——————————————————–
The bulk of your message focused on the Commodore booth, the OpalVision booth,
and the dealer booths. It seems you mi
You know what, Gary? You read too much of your own propaganda. :^)
Just a few points here:
ImageFX is not the only image processing package to do image preview at
all times. Imagemaster also does this, and we did it first. We also do it
better. :^)
ImageFX is not the only program with full painting capability; Imagemaster
also does this, and we did it first. We also do a *great deal* more in the
painting area (more fill types, etc) than does ImageFX, but hey. :^)
Virtual memory, you got. <clapping>
ImageFX is not the only program with morphing built in; Imagemaster also
does this, and we did it first. And (you knew this was coming, but I'm not
into mercy tonite… :^) We do it a HUGE amount better than the
"Cinemorph" module does – although it morphs slower, it morphs better.
ImageFX is not the only image processor to have built in scanner support;
ASDG did this first, Imagemaster does it too, and best for that matter,
with far more sophisticated scanner drivers than ImageFX has.
And there's a huge range of things you can do in Imagemaster which you
either can't do at *all* in ImageFX (Special f/x, many types of fills and
alpha operations…), or you can't do as well (morphing, rendering
Amiga-mode images, little things like that… :^)
So don't get too convinced you're going to take over the world yet.
ImageFX is nice, but it's neither the best nor the "most" nor particularly
innovative. Great UI, though. :^)
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
Ben,
Gary said: "It is also the ONLY program with image preview at all times,
full painting capability, virtual memory built-in, morphing
module, and scanner modules bundled in the main package!"
All Gary said was that Image F/X was the "ONLY" Amiga program with _all_
of those things built in. You have taken him to task for something he did
not say. Did you have a bad day? <g>
BTW, got my IM upgraded to 9.5 (from whatever the first 'morph' version
was)… Nice job! Can't wait for 10.0.
– Michael
Hmmmm. guess I read it wrong…
Nevermind. I can whip up one of those (much more impressive, for that
matter) but it's probably not something worth doing unless prodded. The
way I read that, I was feeling pretty prodded. Now I read it and recognize
it for substandard hype. :^)
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
I just wanted to head off a semantics war.
"Nevermind. I can whip up one of those (much more impressive, for that
matter)…"
Please don't. I'd much rather see your competitive energies spent on the
product, not the hype. 🙂
Yeah, I'd *like* that, too.
However, you'll notice that ASDG, with what is the weakest (by far) imagae
manipulation system on the market has, by no more strength than hype,
propelled it to huge sales – ads, network based hyperbole, etc. Clearly,
marketing isn't at it's best when restricted to the truth.
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
You NEVER let up on ASDG do you? Most serious users have both ADPRO and IM
and use both regularly for different tasks. You know that, and the bashing
is getting REAL old.
When will IM r/w toaster frame stores and display to frame buffers?
….John
Although I don't lose sleep worrying about image processing programs, I do
sympathize with Ben and Perry. When people make incorrect statements or repeat
unfounded hype, it'll drive you bananas unless you correct it. It's important
to say, over and over, "I disagree, and here's why." This is the market at
work. If "most" users had both, then neither Ben nor Perry would be worried
about their sales. I think the point is, their sales are not equal.
Mr. Foust: We'll assume the intentions behind your message were good, but we'll
thank you not to put words in our mouth. While Mr. Kivolowitz certainly worries
about a lot of things (running 20 people does that to you) it is unlikely that
sales “lost'' to BBS is very high on his list.
TS
I didn't put words in anyone's mouth. I'll assume the intentions
behind your message were good. Without disclosing particulars, I
know that every time I've chatted with Perry, he's always talking to
me about his competitors and/or other players in the Amiga industry.
And if you're trying to say that Perry doesn't think about sales…
well, that's quite a public front you're trying to erect. 🙂
Well said.
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
— WARNING — Long reply to John re ASDG; rated "R"
No, I never let up on ASDG. Why should I? They have the #3 product in
a commercial field of three by a huge lag, yet have bamboozled a
large part of the marketplace into thinking that same product is #1
with extremely deceptive ads, bogus on-line comparisons, sleazy
demos, and worse. Ever see the "morph anim comparison" Perry did
"between" Cinemorph and Morph+? You want an example of "interesting"
activity, look there.
He took an anim done by someone who is *seriously* sight-impaired,
represented it as the "best" that Cinemorph could do because "after
all it was done by a Nova/GVP beta tester" and then proceeded from
there. It was ludicrous EXCEPT that the consumer base tends to take
things like that at face value. Cinemorph, in fact, can produce
*excellent* morphs, easily as good a quality as Morph+ (or
Imagemaster); there are many issues of control that can be brought
up, but there is NO penalty in quality for the type of thing that was
shown in that "fair comparison", as Perry termed it.
What else? Oh, lots. They've tried to hire our programmers (let me
tell you THAT got a big laugh around here… you think we ever tried
to hire theirs? Not bloodly likely, let me tell you right now. Aside
from the ethics, which are questionable, the _products_ show us we
don't want to do that. Then, after his (multiple) attempts to hire,
he subsequently spread stories that programmers had left us (in fact,
at the Pasadena WOA, the fellow who wrote that morphing "thing" in AW
came to our booth and told us flat out that we had no programmers
left – you can thank Perry directly for that one).
Is this ethical? I think not. That same article quoted Perry
(unattributed in the article, but admitted by the article's author to
me personally when I called him on it), of all people, on
Imagemaster's morphing technology. Not us. Interesting? Sure – at the
very least. ASDG has advertised Morph+ as the "fastest". They have
advertised AdPro as having "thousands" of image processing functions.
These things are not only inaccurate, they're *completely* untrue,
NEVER were true, and to an aware consumer (very, very rare,
unfortunately) they would not hold up in to light of day well at all.
AdPro in its current state is no competition for either ImageFX or
Imagemaster in about 98% of the areas that all three programs address
– now, it certainly has its uses, as I've *always* maintained, and is
a very reliable product. That's fine, but you can say that about a
lot of things (like AutoPilot, another fine product) which still
don't make the transition from useful and reliable to "competetive"
with Imagemaster – or ImageFX or that matter.
I don't suppose you've ever had the opportunity to see the fax that
ASDG sent around to dealers trumpeting Morph+'s "morphing technology"
and it's alleged benefits over CineMorph and Imagemaster's methods?
Now *there* was a triumph of truth and accuracy. Not. That document
was so inaccurate the paper it was printed on should have
spontaneously combusted. Perhaps you recall when ImageFX/Cinemorph
were released, Perry made himself dear to all by declaring pompously
on the nets that GVP/Nova would shortly have to give up the name of
one of them (I forget which one… doesn't matter – it's the
principal of the thing).
At the time, ASDG had no such product with such a name, and the GVP
critter was shipping. So what comes up? Lawyers. <disgusted look>
Interesting sidenote here; our Windows 3.1 software line was
originally titled "Image F/x:", not "WinImages:". When GVP came out
(first) with ImageFX, we calmly retrenched and did the right thing –
we renamed our unreleased product. No lawyers; no threats; no online
static. That kind of thinking appears to be rarer than one would
think it should be, at least if "one" is me. Of course I consider
lawyers and legal action to be one step above wallowing in raw
sewage… so I may be a bit biased on this one <laughing>
Most of the time, I address these "Perry" things when they happen as
calmly as I can; and if we (I) make original or responding statements
of a competitive nature, they are made *honestly*, and if I make a
mistake regarding the capabilities of a competitor, I publicly admit
it. Nova's been the same way from day one, as far as I can tell. GVP
gets a little rough in the print ads, but not so you could really
complain – and I don't.
In the meantime, ASDG plays "hardball" (well, more like "spitball") on
a regular, recurring basis in the marketplace. The above little ditty
is but the tip of the iceberg; there's lots – and I mean LOTS – more,
we've got a lengthy file detailing this particular saga – we have the
VERY distinct feeling it may be of considerable use someday.
So I apologize for knocking your sensibilities about with statements
that are most definitely not "warm and fuzzy" about ASDG. However, I
make no promises to lighten up… I don't think it's in the cards.
I think thou protesteth too much. 😎 It sounds to me like you're
upset with Perry because he's better at marketing than you are. If,
as you claim, his products are not as good as yours, and yet he's
doing brisk sales, then it sounds like either he's doing something
right, or you're doing something wrong; or both. I'm sure you're
familiar with the term "puffing". Advertisers are allowed to
exaggerate the quality of their products. It's called "good
advertising."
It's not illegal, immoral, unethical, or anything else that you
called it. If Perry advertises his product as "The Best", it
shouldn't be taken literally; it's just a sales ploy. I don't think
it helps you to complain that he's unethical because he doesn't say
in HIS ads that your product is the best. I think that, if anything,
the complaining would hurt your sales rather than help it. It sounds
like sour grapes. Instead of complaining about him, when not deal
with him on his own terms and simply launch a better advertising
campaign.
I don't know if it was you, but I remember about 1 or maybe 1-1/2
years ago, AmigaWorld did a review of Click-Fax. In the next issue,
there was this really long complaint letter from the manufacturer
complaining about the magazine, the reviewer of the product, and
everything else in existence. The writer was basically calling
everybody else stupid and unethical. He made it sound like he was the
only one who knew what he was doing and everyone else didn't have a
clue. The letter was a turnoff for me. I remember not wanting to buy
Click-Fax after reading that letter. Not because of AW's review of
the product, but because of the manufacturer's response to their
review.
I'm sure both your company and ASDG make good products, but I've
never seen ASDG berate anyone else in print. When I see ASDG's ads,
it makes me want to buy their products. When I see your complaints,
it makes me think that here is somebody who can't compete with the
"Big Boys". I never noticed ASDG or anyone else ever knock your
products. You're the one who calls attention to it and ironically I
walk away with the impression that you're knocking and berating them,
and not the other way around.
I just thought you might like to know how it appears to me from a
consumer's perspective.
Good luck and have a nice holiday. 😎
I agree Dom!!!!!
-Jonathan
Nicely put.
// Brian — Cruising on AutoPilot…..
\X/
But , he does make interesting points ….. for me as the consumer I
win ….. The bigger and better the fight …. the better the
product is ….. I say let both of them turn the fire up even more !!
"Greed is good " enough said …….
Dom,
I'm not upset with Perry – or ASDG – because he or "they" is/are
"better" at marketing than I/we are. Not at all. If that was the
issue, I'd be upset at GVP, which I am most assuredly not. GVP
marketing is much more formidable than ASDG's – there's more of it,
the company has a wider range of products and they're "in" more
machines than ASDG is. When GVP markets something, credibility is
pretty high. ImageFX sells oodles – I have good reason to know, and
to keep track of such things. It does NOT bother me, not in the
least. Marketing clearly has multiple flavors, not just one. It
should be clear to you that if your thesis was accurate, I'd be just
as (or perhaps more) upset with GVP. yet I'm not, and in fact am
happy to stand up and say ImageFX is exactly what it says it is, 99%
of the time. Kermit et al have made that easy by never lying and
rarely even exaggerating. Clearly, your idea is wrong or at the very
least incomplete. Looking back at the message I left, my reasons
look pretty clear to me, though.
Now, your turn – if that's not what I'm upset about, what IS it that I
am upset about? From you attitude about marketing (that is, what
practices you think are "ok"), you may never understand… but that's
ok, too. I do wonder if you can "get" it. Clearly you're not stupid –
but also clearly you have different ideas about what's "ok".
You say you've never seen ASDG berate anyone else in print? Again,
perhaps we don't have the same concepts of what "berate" means, but
if you look at the Morph Plus ads, besides the (completely bogus, but
that's ok by you… just an "exaggeration", right? :^) claim of
"fastest", there's a statement in there about how others have
"claimed" to have cinema quality morphing… you might want to reread
that statement with this conversation in mind.
Dom, _if_ I say "we're the best" at something, I'm *not* exaggerating.
I mean you to take it literally, and I expect to be able to back it
up. I'm saying, "we're the best". If I say we make the best quality
Amiga mode images, I'm not saying that just because the syllables
come together nicely and it might delude some purchasers into buying
our products; I'm saying because in real-world testing, I have been
unable to get any of the competing products to produce as good an
image from the same source image. If I say we have more features
than another product, I said it because I *counted* them and I *know*
we do. When I say we have more morphing features, I say it because we
do. It's really a pretty simple concept. I'm sorry if it doesn't live
up to your preconceived notions of how products must be presented;
but I can tell you one thing – it's not going to change.
Excellent post! I agree completely!
Wouldn't you know, it's gotta be a New Yorker who steps forward to lay
down the law on who's right, wrong, ethical or not ethical. 🙂
If Ben wants to run his business within the confines of what he
considers to be ethical, honest, upstanding, etc., and if he thinks
his competitors are not, and wants to say something about it, then
for heaven's sakes, let Ben be Ben. Give him an 'atta boy, and judge
him by the facts.
Cold reality being what it is, products do not necessarily "win" in
the marketplace because of their technical excellence. If Company X
decides to lie in their ads, 99 percent of the time they can get away
with it. What can you do about it? When their competitors stand up
to complain, it's a shame that some people will think it's just sour
grapes.
Durn .. swallowed my gum this time! You old grouch, it's all your
fault. Think I'll go call a lawyer .. soon's I think of what to
call him.
I am afraid I quite agree with you. ASDG is a valued developer, and
I can't stand the bashing the company gets here.
Especially as they seem to be the only place to get an Amiga E-Net
card nowadays….
I local dealer just got in at least one CBM card…seems that they
are finally trickling in (or maybe they found a pile in the warehouse
behind all the stuff they are clearing out 🙂
Calm down! I own both IM and ADPRO… Both are great for different
uses. You have features that ADPRO doesn't and they have features
you don't. Sooo.. Let people enjoy both and if you want to beat
ASDG, employ so many features at a price that makes ASDG impossible
to compete, otherwise, let people have both! IM is a great product,
but so is ADPRO.
Of course, this is a _completely_ unbiased view of ADPro's strengths
and weaknesses relative to YOUR product.
You must be confused. I didn't discuss AdPro's stengths and
weaknesses at all. Would you like to? I'm perfectly ready to do so
with direct correspondance with IM's, if that's your pleasure. What
I was talking about had to do with ethics more than anything else.
Guess you missed the point.
> What I was talking about had to do with ethics more than anything else.
> Guess you missed the point.
No, I just got tired of reading messages with the tone you are
becoming famous for.
Ah. Never mind, then.
Hi Ben,
The original "report" for the show (way back at the beginning of this
thread) seemed to indicate that the WOC show was nothing more than a flea
market and that GVP had nothing new to show. EVERYTHING we had on our booth
was new, and the fact that we are the ONLY company currently shipping an A1200
Accelerator should be considered more than a "big disappointment."
Also, I didn't say other packages didn't have Image Preview, nor did I
say that other packages didn't have painting tools or other features. The
comment I made was directed at the amount of functionality bundled in the main
package. There are no additional functions, features, modules, or other
packages to buy to get all of the listed features. You pay the one price for
the Image Processing package, and the minute you install it, you can begin
scanning, painting, morphing, operating, animating, rendering, and more!
By the way, I forgot one other feature… 😉 The Public Domain
ImageFX Developer's Kit. The ToasterFX package from Bird's Eye came from this
kit, and we look forward to the many new and interesting "things" people will
think up for ImageFX.
So anyway, take care and have a good Easter Weekend…
Gary Nush
Gary, my mistake – I read your message quite wrong, missed that key word.
You do know that there are no additional modules to buy with Imagemaster?
That in fact, Imagemaster was the first package to offer such a edeal? And
that Imagemaster has had a public domain developer's kit out for over a
year? Just so you know… :^)
Happy holiday to you, too.
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
Gary,
I have purchased a number of items from GVP and have always been very
satisfied with the products and the support. GVP makes great products and
always has one of the nicest booths at the Amiga Shows. Thanks for the
excellent support for the Amiga.
Happy Easter!
Dom Fontana
–> Sent from NY via AP <–
I suppose your remarks are to be taken as "fact" and not "propaganda" eh?
🙂
ImageFX is a great program and I really don't think Gary made any claims
that were not true. I think you misread his posting.
-mark=
Otto Pilot Engaged..
I did – however, my remarks WERE factual, entirely.
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
Hmmmnnn, isn't refuting advertising with factual information something
of an exercise in futility?
I see MUCH more advertising for ADPro and other ASDG products than I
see for IM (do you make anything else anymore?). If people don't hear
of your products, how are they to buy it?
I use, and like, ADPro. I haven't heard much from you that would make
me want to change products. Mostly because the "flaming" tone of your
messages gets so tiresome that after reading the first paragraph (so
I know why you're flaming THIS time), I just skip to the next
message.
Simple IM questions:
1 — Does it support AGA display modes and the "new" way of selecting
screen resolutions?
2 — Do you do any of the new AGA ANIM (7/8) formats for morphing?
3 — How easy is it to create an animation (AGA formats if possible)
from successive (say TARGA format) raytraced pictures created by
POV-ray?
4 — Can I create an AGA anim on a non-AGA machine?
If you want to talk about ImageMaster, then go right ahead. But
PLEASE stop bellyaching about ASDG outselling you with an "inferior"
product. Tell me — or better yet SHOW ME — why I should go an buy
your product. Send up some morphs (more than 32 frames please, one
second is too short a time to judge), convert a GIF (or TARGA, or
jpeg image) or two to IFFs (HAM8 and 16-color), and u/l both the
original image and the IFFs. Alternatively, put together a demo disk
of images and morphs and make it available either freely or for the
cost of handling.
Just another $0.02…
// Brian — Cruising on AutoPilot…..
\X/
I think you have the right idea… I never see ASDG flamin on BBS
like Ben does. Anyway, I like ADPRO *AND* IM… I couldn't be
without either. I hope that Ben realizes that the Amiga community
benefits from competition and that he should reserve his energy for
making IM better. If I didn't already own IM, I may be determined
NOT to buy it based soley on Ben's negative antics.
If you've not seen ASDG glaming BBS, it's only because you're a CIS
person. ASDG reserves most of that kind of stuff for the internet and
BIX, where they have a much more comprehensive presence. We're
primarily based on CIS but have been active on other nets in the
past. Perry has indeed posted various and sundry "attack" level files
and messages here, however… if you never saw them, you simply
missed them.
"Isn't refuting advertising with factual information something of an
excercise in futility?". Yes, I think that is so. It's a problem.
1 – Yes, IM supports AGA extensively.
2 – ANIM formats – we've already got OP-5 + AutoDesk FLIC, and ANIM7
is on the way. Looks like ANIM8 may be dead before it's even out of
the gate, but if it turns out to be better than first reports from
consumers indicate, we'll do that too of course. Imagemaster can
generate series of frames anyway, so you can always construct anims
in whatever format you like, as long as you have a constructor-tool.
3 – dunno – never tried it. But should be trivially easy; pick the
images from a list in the sequencer, setup the output image mode and
go for it. 4 – Sure.
Morphs, excellent ones for that matter, have been online for a long
time. Ditto 16 color renders and etc. You can get them from the
libs, if you want them, anytime.
> 2 – ANIM formats – we've already got OP-5 + AutoDesk FLIC,
Autodesk FLI? Hmmmnnn. Import a FLI, save it to anim7 and see what
runs it faster….. Multi-media Benchmark #654.
> and ANIM7 is on the way.
Thanks. Assuming I can generate the Anim on a non-AGA machine. My
1200's kinda slow.
> Looks like ANIM8 may be dead before it's even out of the gate,
Well, if only ASDG supports it, it may as well be dead. One-vendor
graphic formats may be OK elsewhere, but not on the Amiga. This is
the kind of information I was looking for! Now All I have to do is
see if my dealer has the program so I can see it work it's magic.
(Have to go there anyway to get a CD file system, prices on the
CD-ROMs are coming down….)
Imagemaster is structured so that you can generate any format on any
system, regardless of mode. If the mode's not compatible, you just
don't get to SEE it when it is generated. So ANIM7 creation on a
nonAGA machine would be fine, as soon as we have the ANIM7 writer,
that is. :^)
Something else – if you already have one of ASDG's softwarae products,
we have a program where you can get Imagemaster at a substantial
discount; you might want to call 800 852 6442 for details.
btw, I do NOT know if ANIM7 or ANIM8 is better or not; all I know at
this point is from comments in the fora here, which may or may not be
accurate; it's early days yet for both formats and ANIMs aare kind of
funky re speed.
One fact Ben has forgotten, or considered it not worth mentioning.
The ANIM7 format has not been cataloged and published by Commodore as
a valid specification. I am sure it will happen, but today,
officially ANIM7 is not an IFF format. ANIM8 is.
You're quite right – I didn't think it was worth mentioning. Still
don't.
Dare I ask why?
Are you saying there is no value to the registration of the IFF format
with Commodore?
If so, why?
I am perplexed about your attitude Ben.
-mark=
Otto Pilot Engaged..
True, Let's hope that ANIM7 doesn't end up as dead as the oddball
anims first created by Scuplt/Animate (I think these are the people
whose anim player was called "movie".)
Kermit Woodall mentioned awhile back that Wolfgang Hofer, developer
of Anim-7, has applied to CATS to make Anim-7 an official anim
format. Whether or not CBM approve's of the format is anyone's guess
but if Anim-7 is indeed better than Anim-8 I would hope it is given
serious consideration.
Good John.
I for one hope that everyone supports the effort Commodore does put forth
in maintaining the IFF standard.
-mark=
Otto Pilot Engaged..
FYI – We (GVP) now have a functional copy of ImageFX available to ANYONE for
free. It (obviously) lacks a couple of things to make sure you go out and buy
it (!) but we believe it's the best way for you to see what ImageFX is all
about.
Also, regarding your A1200 being slow – that's exactly what our A1230 Turbo+ is
all about. Check it out – it's amazing. At WOC we showed the A1200 with our
card outrunning a 4000 on some benchmarks! Plus we had 2 x 16MB SIMMs
installed!!!
Couldn't resist…
Regards, Paul.
Great on your A1230 Turbo+, but I've always wondered why GVP always uses
custom SIMM's when everyone else (ICD, DKB, MicroBotic's) uses standard
SIMM's. I know you guy's want to make a good profit, but don't you think
the use of custom SIMM's is stretching it a bit? BTW, I don't have any
interest in any of the 1200 accelerator's since I have a 4000, but have
always wanted to know why GVP always takes great lengths to make sure you
have to buy the memory from them for all of their boards.
// John – K7KB (Flying via AutoPilot)
\X/ "Worf: To Hell with the Prime Directive – Give the Borg Windows!"
I'd like to echo that curiosity… Especially for a low speed
accelerator, or the SCSI board.
Bob Comer
On Autopilot, from Cheyenne, Wyoming, U.S.A.
Hi John. We make custom SIMMs for a few reasons, obviously one of them being
to sell them of course, but there's more to it than that. With traditional
SIMMs one must usually add them 4 at a time, due to their memory organization.
Our SIMMs are 32 bit wide meaning they can be added one at a time on our 32 bit
accelerators. Also, "generic" SIMMs actually vary, and so to ensure the best
reliability and lower the number of unknown factors involved in the running of
an accelerator, we decided to make our own. I also want to point out that we
don't abuse the fact that the user must use our SIMMs either, as we try to
remain competitive with "standard" SIMMs. At the World of Commodore show, I
saw GVP 4MB 60ns 32 bit SIMMs going for $179 which is comparable to the best PC
prices I see.
I hope this helps.
Regards, Paul.
Well, my 1200 _was_ slow. But after adding fast RAM, it's better now.
I'm not looking to make it my primary machine, My 3000 just grew a CD-ROM
drive — so the 3000 has life left in her yet. Heck, if I can afford it
later on, I'll try to netowrk the two together and turn the 3000 into an
ENLAN "file server." (yes, I know it's a peer-to-peer network…)
BTW: How do I get the ImageFX demo?
Brian
// Brian — Cruising on AutoPilot…..
\X/
Gary,
Didya happ'n to see the new Syqst 3.5" drive in use at WOA? If so, what
kindof price tag has it got?
Chris
No I haven't heard of the new SyQuest drive, what booth was it at? Did you
happen to get any specs or list pricing?
I haven't seen any Press Releases from them, other than a new software package
they developed for the Mac to make cartridge interchange easier and more
reliable…
Gary,
There have been a couple of postings here regarding the new 3.5" drive. I
was curious if Syqst was showing it at WOA and it's price. There is a spec
sheet in the Lib. (Syquest 3.5").
Please excuse me for saying that GVP had nothing in their booth;
usually, I could count on GVP for big surprises, for technology that
truly advanced the state of the Amiga arts. I didn't feel that was
the case this year. G-Lock, PhonePak and IV24 have been around, as
has ImageFX. The GVP 1200 expansion products are natural
progressions of GVP's other excellent accelerator products (my
machine is all GVP expanded. Except for the miserable placement of
non-removeable terminators on my Series II SCSI controller, I love my
GVP equipment).
However, there was nothing like the EGS boards shown last year, which
was (to me) a total suprise, and truly breakthough technology. I was
looking forward to something along the same lines (PhonePak killed me
the first time I saw it, too), but there wasn't any such animal.
Sorry if I was disappointed, but the GVP booth was pretty mundane
compared to previous shows.
The end of your message got cut off…something about the bulk of my
message focused on the CBM, OpalVision and daler booths…
I noticed that my message got chopped. Your recent message
basically answered the question that I was going to ask: Did you stop
by the GVP stations and see all of the products we were showing?
While some of the hardware (i.e. G-Lock, IV24, PhonePak) have
been on the market for a little while, we were showing some very new,
and very powerful, software enhancements. The IV24 2.0 package now
includes the full-blown Caligari24 with animation support, the
PhonePak software includes a whole slew of new features to make local
and remote access easier and more flexible. ImageFX now supports
(through an add-on from another company) reading, writing, and
displaying Video Toaster FrameStores, which many consider an
extremely useful addition.
If you're still looking for some bang and flash, this year
will not be a disappointment! 😉
-=*) Gary Nush (*=-