NEWS -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- OVERALL NEWS: ------------- - The first digital VCR is introduced by Sony, the logical next step after D.C.C. and DAT. Maybe we also can store data on it, in the near future !? Here comes the digital revolution ! - Maggie will soon celebrate their 5th anniversary and will throw some sort of party around august 1995. Further details are not known till this date. - The Independent are organizing their third 'Fried Bits Eastern Coding Convention' this year. An estimated number of 45 groups will attend to this event. These groups come from Germany, Sweden, Netherlands, France, U.K. and Austria. Four different computer magazines will cover this big happening. With a bit of luck, we will bring you a real-time article just like the previous years. Many different competitions will be held like a demo, 96ktro, graphics and module competition. Prizes will vary between the 5.000 to 10.000 DM (prices may include a Jaguar). - All dutch Demo crews have seized to exist, The D.B.A. is the only active Falcon crew left which is quite a frightening experience ! Germany seems to have the most active Falcon scene with some moral sponsoring by the German magazine ST Computer. This magazine publishes articles about all German democrews. - Atari and Sega have come to an agreement over software licenses. The latter agreed on paying Atari an estimated figure of 80 million U.S. dollars. The battle was fought over software licenses of well-known Atari games that where converted by Sega. Hopefully Atari will use this money for some advertising to push the Jaguar where it belongs, at the top !! I'm not sure anymore about that 80 million, I saw figures of 90 million and even 40 million ! - An external company will produce Falcons. Atari doesn't produce this machine anymore as you probably already know. Rumours go that this company will create new models. - A new Batman movie will see the light at the end of 1995 and also a new James Bond movie. In the James Bond movie will be role for a dutch girl. Needless to say that we look forward to seeing it. PAPER MAGAZINE'S ---------------- - The British 'ST Magazine' has folded, it seems that only ST Format is left in the U.K. ! A big blow to the international Atari community ! - The German Atari magazine 'ST computer' has competition from a brand new magazine. This magazine goes by the name 'Atari Inside' and is recently introduced to the public. However there is one disadvantage judging from it's cover, it's completely written in German ! INTERNET: --------- - Internet is booming as thousands and thousands of new people discover the super digital highway every day. In the Netherlands are only 23 companies that offer access to the net. However Dutch Telecom will provide also services within the next couple of years. Dutch Telecom will also gain some mayor competition as a new Telecom company will see the light of day at the end of 1995. It's joined operation of the Dutch Railroad and the Energy companies. Both Dutch Telecom and the new company will use optical fiber for the complete network. The public will profit from 1998 on. Lets hope for a major price battle !! Some info about Internet: * There are around 4 million computers 'linked' together at the moment. * Around 40 million users are registered !* * There over 159 countries connected to the net including Antarctica ! - We got some more news on the Internet, Hackers have discovered a fault in the Internet system which allows them to hack into every system on the net. It has something to do with faking rights or something like that. They managed to break into the computer of a well-known expert on security. A whole day long, the hackers have been browsing through his computer and they found all kinds of codes and passwords. So be warned, if your part of the net ! CD-ROM: ------- - A Japanese firm (TDK) will release fully writable CD-ROMs(?) this year. Nothing is known about the prices of these CDs and the equipment needed to write on them. It sure beats a tapestreamer !! Prices will certainly be high. A price increase on writable CDs can be expected as pirates will certainly take advantage of this new opportunity. B.t.w. CD-Roms containing illegal software are already roaming the swapping circuit for half a year now. These CDs are packed to the brim with zipped games and utilities, complete with a menu for easy installing on the Harddrive. - Talking about CD-Rom, the diskette has had it, every new game or application will be released on CD-Rom on virtually every platform except for the Atari. It's sad to say that Atari was the first to 'announce' it and the last to actually use it. There are only 6/7 CDs for the Atari range. You can also buy CD-Roms made for the PC. It is possible to read from the CD-Rom in a PC with aid of a serial cable. You do require 'ghostlink' to pull it of. Thank god that the Falcon can at least read GIF pics, play mods and can convert DBase, Clipart and textfiles! Thanks to these possibilities you can get your hands on hundreds of CDs with pics, texts and sound ! A medal for the guy that will code a parallel communication program for use between a Falcon and a PC ! - Plans for the release of a CD-Rom for the Atari range of computers are being made by The D.B.A. People who want more information or want to help us out with suggestions and stuff are welcome to contact us. FAKE CACHECHIPS: ---------------- - There seems to be PC boards going around with placebo cache chips. Some Korean firm has dumped lots of these fake chips on the German market. In Germany, France and other countries have fake cache chips popped up, so be warned ! The boards are normally (complete) sold for around 160 marks (including the cache chip costing 30 marks) ! Conclusion the people who sell these boards make 30 marks profit on each board ! If you sell thousand, you will wind up with a nice profit ! - The latest news from the computermarket is that fake Intel chips have been discovered with false inscriptions on them. Some Korean company is responsible for dumping this stuff on the European market. Countries like China have factories that copy software and other things like music and ROM CD's. Those copies get sold again for a only a fraction of the original price. This is part of the reason that the U.S. have warned China to stop these illegal activities or they will stop the import of certain Chinese goods. MODEMS: ------- - Well the baud rate of modems have been increased... You can now buy a modemcard for the PC that runs at 28.800 bits per second ! Well it's just a matter of time and they will appear also as external devices which means they can be used with your Atari. ~DISKBOEM.BLK~ STRANGE PACKING METHODS: ------------------------ - Very strange rumours go about a firm in Deventer the Netherlands that have come up with a new data compression technique. They claim that their new technique can pack 45 floppy disks on 1 single floppy disk !! Quite amazing, if not impossible ! Many computers users have their doubts about this achievement. It's said that a complete encyclopedia of the painter Mondriaan has been packed on 1 floppy disk ! If this compression method actually exist's than you could pack 12 Gigabyte on 1 CD-Rom ! Well it's worth dreaming about ...