#Comdex not for Amigans
34 messages in this thread
For those who are interested, here is my over view of Comdex. As it
relates to the Amiga.
While they were listed in the show directory, Commodore was notably
MISSING from the expo. After looking for nearly a half hour for the
booth address, I found that Centar(OpalVision) was in there place.
So, at least they were there.
Also missing was NEWTEK. They have been at the previous two shows but
not this one! =8O
I found Caligari (sorry I've forgotten the manufactures name), Pride
Video, TAO Editizer and RGB(makers of Amilink). There was an
Amiga/Toaster at the Sanyo booth (where Pride video was) but the
station was unattended for the time that I was there.
Did any one else attend that I missed?!?!?!?!?
The missing presents of Newtek and C= surely don't do much for the platform as
a whole or hole, take your pick!
As much as I like COMDEX, it is a computer show dominated by PCs.
Even Macs are in the very minority. NewTek may have been smart in
avoiding it this time since COMDEX is not exactly the best place
desktop video and multimedia applications. For us, the biggest show
is NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) Convention. We have
had more response from shows like NAB than from any other show.
John, Having been at Comdex, I can tell you DTV and multimedia were
very well represented at the show – the entire south pavilion and two
ajoinging annexs were filled with the stuff. And the other facilities
had multimedia popping up as well. It was virtually all pc/windows
however, with a few mac offerings and the first glimmers of
powerpc… Lou
You are correct in that multimedia and DTV was well represented at
Comdex, but as you have just said it was mostly PC/Windows based.
Rather hostile country for Amigans. Certainly Scala will be at
Comdex once we have our PC product in hand. I wonder what kind of
reception we can expect?
Someone in the Cyberforum did mention seeing Mandala at Comdex.
Mandala is VR software for the Amiga; however, for all we know it may
now be available for PCs, as well. — Ron Legro from Milwaukee via
I've distantly observed the Mandala project for many years and I
believe that it is one of the true founders of the VR concept. I
wish they would really start finding practical uses for the way it is
being used now. Someone mentioned that they are using a modified and
enhance V-Lab for their work now. Anybody have a clue? PCs will
have to go a long way in order to do the processing required to make
the Mandala project work well. Don't forget that the Amiga is a
multi-tasking software AND HARDWARE platform!
Mandala CDTV, which at one time as I said was a projected product,
would've been one of those rare killer aps that can make a platform.
Bundle it with the CDTV internal genlock and you'd have had a pretty
powerful VR machine. Too bad it apparently did not see fruition. One
of my old catalogs listed it for $69.95, but I'm pretty sure it was
vaporware. It's not too late to create a CD32 Mandala bundle,
though!
Cool! Where do we line up to buy?
Warmest Regards,
John Chang
Technical/Sales Support
Scala, Inc.
P.S. Happy Thanksgiving!
Sounds cool. If that had been shown at a Siggraph you might have had
artsy-techies buying CDTV's in droves.
Interesting event is that yesterday I went to out local Exilarama to
try out their new 'VR' games. While we were waiting for a turn, one
of them crashed and up came a VERY FAMILLIAR screen. It seems that
the boxes are Amigas networked together. The funny thing about it
was that they had generic PC keyboards (with some keys removed). Has
anyone else seen these?
Hmmm… there are two virtual reality simulators based on the Amiga and some
specialized hardware. One is based on person to person combat with a marauding
Teradactal. The other is based on a tank simulator. Can't seem to remember
what the titles of the games were. Anyone have any ideas? The simulators are
from England I believe.
Sincerely,
John Chang
Technical/Sales Support
Scala, Inc.
We have both of them here. The Pteradactal one is called something like
'Pteradactal Nightmare' and it is a standup one with 360 movement. The
tank one is a sitdown one with much less movement allowed. It appears
that the resolution on the head set display is somewhere around 320×200 or
so and seems to be based on dual playfield interlace work.
— John A. Toebes, VIII — Obvious Implementations Corp.
— Internet: toebes@oic.com
"Obvious Implementations Corp"
"O.I.C."
<cheering and grinning>
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
You would be amazed at the number of people who don't get it…
— John A. Toebes, VIII — Obvious Implementations Corp.
— Internet: toebes@oic.com
No, I wouldn't. :^)
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
Get what? Come on guys… what are you talking about? Aw, come on guys, don't
give me the silent treatment! Tell me!!! ;-}
Sincerely,
John Chang
Technical/Sales Support
Scala, Inc.
The name of my company of course. Don't you see? (Pun Intended)
— John A. Toebes, VIII — Obvious Implementations Corp.
— Internet: toebes@oic.com
Thanks on the spelling of Pteradactal! Supposedly, the same company is
working on next generation stuff on the AGA chipset. Should be interesting.
May have to wait till SIGGRAPH for a premiere.
Sincerely,
John Chang
Technical/Sales Support
Scala, Inc.
Uhh John? "Pterodactyl" is spelled just like that.
Blaq!
Thats' right. Earlier parts of this thread seemed to have lost the silent
'P' during upload of the message :->.
— John A. Toebes, VIII — Obvious Implementations Corp.
— Internet: toebes@oic.com
John,
while reading Wired, I stumbled onto an item about "teradactyl nightmare", a
misspelling of the classic Virtuality game; however, it gave me a good enough
scare that I had to boot up WordPerfect and ensure I hadn't mistakenly given
out the improper spelling. Fortunately, I was right. It's
p-t-e-r-o-d-a-c-t-y-l.
Reigning Toronto spelling bee champ,
(I kid you not!)
Blaq!
Right Charles! Yup! Uh huh! Tero… no, Pterodactil…no, Pterod… oh you
know what I mean! ;-}
Warmest Regards,
John Chang
Technical/Sales Support
Scala, Inc.
John,
How about ARENA or COMBAT or TANK COMBAT? Those descriptions remind me
of a couple of games seen on a Silicon Graphics machine.
Sincerely,
(Mr.) Gayle Lee Fairless
'Perfessor Fearless' from the Rocket City!
via AutoPilot 1.03a
Mmm… I think it was "Combat Arena" now that you joggled the brain a bit.
Don't worry, the gears and springs that fell out aren't important ;-}
Sincerely,
John Chang
Technical/Sales Support
Scala, Inc.
We have a place down here called VR World that uses the teradactal system.
It is from W Industries in the UK. It is very well done–especially when
you consider it is running on slightly modified Amiga 3000s.
I do wish W Industries would give us something to use at home! 🙂
-mark=
Otto Pilot Engaged..
I'm glad to hear the the Amiga is being used in these trendy VR systems.
On a slightly lower tech level, there is a photo booth near where I work
which has the option to put a range of well known people next to you on
the photograph. One morning I saw its outside display screen showing
Workbench with our old friend the "Task Held" reqeustor.
Regards
Peter
It certainly says a lot about the reliability of the platform :->.
Actually I find it amazing how stable a number of the applications are
compared to my PC.
— John A. Toebes, VIII — Obvious Implementations Corp.
— Internet: toebes@oic.com
Don't start me on PCs ! I use a PC at work, 386 (which has hardware memory
management) and windows 3.1, and I get more lockups and crashes from this
than my A500+ which has to rely on software memory management. And as for
the amount of memory they need . . .
Regards
Peter
What, you mean that the machine that business people put their trust and
faith in to manage assets, track inventories, manage budgets, and even
project sales are perhaps a little less than perfectly reliable? 🙂
— John A. Toebes, VIII — Obvious Implementations Corp.
— Internet: toebes@oic.com
Peter,
There is NO program to program memory management within Windows just as
there is no program to program memory management within the Amiga. In that
respect, the two platforms are equal.
By far, the biggest reason for crashes and lockups are poorly written
software and improper operating parameters.
Don
Actually Don, Windows by default in the 8086 mode does memory management
(but not protection). That is part of what made it work in such a
constrained environment. You are right on the money with the crashes and
lockups which I find absolutely amazing. I truely believe that people
spend MORE effort on their Amiga code (with a few notable exceptions)
because there is a developer perception that the machine is easier to
crash AND because we are just more conciencies programmers :-).
— John A. Toebes, VIII — Obvious Implementations Corp.
— Internet: toebes@oic.com
>>By far, the biggest reason for crashes and lockups are poorly
written software and improper operating parameters.<<
Programs don't cause crashes.
People who run programs cause crashes.
Next I suppose you'll want to institute
a five day waiting period for software.
"If we outlaw bad programs
only outlaws will have bad programs"
<tfic>
-Michael
Michael:
Maybe they will start taxing bugs. <grin>
Clint <Chaocity>
What about the background check, eh? ;-}
Warmest Regards,
John Chang
Technical/Sales Support
Scala, Inc.