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Hi all!

I was able to have a little chat with Petro Tyschtschenko during the Computer 97 Amiga fair in Cologne. Here's what he said in brief:

• New Amigas shall be aggressively priced to broaden the user base, both in the home sector and the professional sector. T. gave a figure of 400 Mark (around $230) for an entry level Amiga to 1500 Mark (approx. $870) for the top machine. (Rem: I'm not sure how complete such a machine can be. T. remained vague about whether you would have to add some components to get a really decent Amiga, e.g. HD, Gfx board or so)
• New Amigas shall be developed by Amiga Inc., USA, but not necessarily manufactured by Amiga itself. Instead, Amiga International is supposed to licence new developed items to whoever. Under a "powered by Amiga" label there shall be a variety of manufacturers that actually build Amigas. Amiga Intl. will see that certain standards and compatibility is maintained.
• There is no decision yet which CPU shall be used in the new Amiga line. Tyschtschenko made a pretty surprising statement: He would like most a Motorola 68060 or 68080 at 200 MHz in a new Amiga. He pointed out the advantage of being able to use a simple OS upgrade from 3.x instead of a complete rewrite. He didn't elaborate whether Motorola would be willing to build such a beast. Another option, processor-wise, would be some sort of cooperation with Phase5 (and the PPC board).

Besides, Tyschtschenko said pretty good about the work with Gateway executives. Amiga sales were going up. All in all he displayed lots of optimism though he didn't disregard possible dangers. AI stated earlier that new Amigas were not to be expected before sometime late in 1998. Maybe OS 3.5 will be out in the middle of the year.

Have a nice day

But christmas is on the way, so there's a reason to not only offer the corresponding bundles, but do this early enough!

The following bundle prices are limited until 24th December 1997 (postal stamp's date or date of email):

Bundle #1: PNG-Box + akPNG-dt
Name	Regular price
PNG-Box keyfile	20,- DM
akPNG reg.	15,- DM
TOTAL:	35,- DM
BUNDLE-PRICE:	25,- DM	(saves you 10,- DM !)
Bundle #2: SuperView + akJFIF-dt + akPNG-dt
Name	regular price
SViewNG keyfile	30,- DM
akPNG reg.	15,- DM
akJFIF reg.	15,- DM
TOTAL	60,- DM
BUNDLE-PRICE:	45,- DM	(saves you 15,- DM !)
Bundle #3: SuperView + PNG-Box + akJFIF-dt + akPNG-dt
Name	regular price
SViewNG keyfile	30,- DM
PNG-Box keyfile	20,- DM
akPNG reg.	15,- DM
akJFIF reg.	15,- DM
TOTAL	80,- DM
BUNDLE-PRICE:	60,- DM	(saves you 20,- DM !)
Bundle #4: SuperView + PNG-Box + DRAFU + akJFIF-dt + akPNG-dt
Name	regular price
SViewNG keyfile	30,- DM
PNG-Box keyfile	20,- DM
DRAFU keyfile	30,- DM
Mat Bettinson leaves CU Mat Bettinson, chief technical writer for CU Amiga, is leaving to go on to a better place. You can find his FAQ on the subject at his homepage. He says he'll be leaving to work for `a big company' and that, yes, he will be working with PCs. The Lair would like to wish Mat all the best, and we won't say `we told you so' when he starts regularly shouting at Windoze 98 :-) Copper goes to the head at IBM The incredibly brainy people down at IBM have pioneered a rather special development, I think you'll agree. Most edge connectors are currently made out of aluminium. You know, the things that break on the custom chips :-). The new technology will allow an unprescedented 2,200 exterior connections, say IBM, and is manufactured at the 0.2 micron level. Currently, IBM are distributing development kits, but the first products using the technology are expected by the end of this year. Relating to this, chairman emeritus of Intel, Gordon Moore has said that his (in)famous law about chip power doubling every 18 months would need to be revised. Copper conductors would boost electron transfer by 50% but manufacturing would be hit by increasingly complex lithographic procedures. New top level domain names introduced The familiar .com,.edu,.org and .co top level domains names (and variations thereon) have served us well. Certain domain names have snuck in from time to time, .net being one that springs to mind, but I'm sure I've seen a site with a .plc domain name. However, there is definitely a problem: not only are we running out of DNS address (the funny numbers that represent www.company.com), certain legal problems are growing up around internet domain names. To help combat this problem, the powers that be have decided that we need more domain names. These are, as follows: .web Web related sites .rec Similar to the Usenet dir - recreational .nom For personal sites .info Guess... I would hope that this might stem the tide of people ignorantly choosing the .com domain name simply because they don't know better, but it's always hard to combat ignorance. I can only presume that the country tags like .uk and .au will be appended to these tags ISP sues spammer SimpleNet, a San Diego-based Internet service provider, has filed a lawsuit against several companies and individuals that allegedly used its servers to send hundreds of thousands of e-mail messages advertising a book called "Meet, Attract and Date Gorgeous Women." But unlike previous "spam" cases alleging civil violations, SimpleNet is requesting that criminal charges be brought against the perpetrators: "Criminal charges are being brought because the named defendants have orchestrated an intricate and highly deceptive plan to defraud SimpleNet and its customers,"says the plaintiff's attorney. SimpleNet has also filed a civil claim in federal court, alleging that the defendants illicitly used company resources and damaged its reputation. The bulk mail and responding flame mail caused SimpleNet's servers to crash on at least one occasion, and the unsolicited messages have caused several organizations to filter out any messages coming from the SimpleNet domain. AOL not responsible for malicious posting In another case involving liability of Internet service providers, a federal appeals court has ruled that a man who received death threats after some anonymous enemy posted false and malicious information about him could not hold America Online responsible. Noting that the federal Communications Decency Act of 1996 immunizes Internet and online providers from lawsuits over material that comes from third parties, the Court said that, if Internet service providers were held responsible for such messages, they would "have a natural incentive to remove messages upon notification, whether the contents were defamatory or not. Liability upon notice has a chilling effect on the freedom of Internet speech." Mastering the 'Net Marlboro College in Vermont will begin offering two new graduate programs in January -- a master of arts in teaching with the Internet and a master of science in Internet strategy. "Knowledge-making is changing in every field because of this technology," says the college's president. "We're not focusing just on the Internet, but how people can use this kind of cardinal technology in a broader way." The programs will focus on teaching teachers how to incorporate the Internet into the classroom experience, and teaching managers how to oversee an organization's Internet strategy. Amiganet moves and grooves to the server shuffle Amiganet, the popular Amiga dedicated IRC network, has been changing things around, something I noticed when I tried to connect to the UK server. Servers are as follow: thule.no.amiganet.org [Norway] whiterose.us.amiganet.org [USA] kth.se.amiganet.org [Sweden] fastlane.au.amiganet.org [Australia] linux.us.amiganet.org [USA] stayfree.uk.amiganet.org [UK]