=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Amy Today A text-file magazine for all Amiga lovers Volume #5, Issue #2, November 20th =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Editor : John Rydell Writers: Jeff James and Roger Walker Address all correspondence to: "Amy Today" C/O John Rydell GEnie address: J.Rydell1 640 Willowglen Rd. (#54790) Santa Barbara, CA 93105 Plink address: J*Rydell GEnie discussion in category #2, topic #29 Plink discussion in Section #2 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Contents: 1. A Message From the Editor John Rydell 2. Distributing "Amy Today" John Rydell 3. Amiga Happenings John Rydell 4. Commodore Announces John Rydell 5. Virus Protection Roger Walker 6. Empire Review Jeff James 7. Trading Galore!! John Rydell 8. Newsletter Trading John Rydell 9. Advertising John Rydell 10. In the Future John Rydell =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= A Message From The Editor: The Christmas season is finally upon us and this season usually brings forth many new products as the publishers rush to gain their share of the holiday market. Commodore, itself, has finally given word of many new products for the Amiga line. I doubt many, if any, of these products will be ready by Christmas but they should all be available some time next year. Read more about these in my article, "Commodore Announces". With all of the virus problems these days I felt that I should include an article in Amy Today. Roger Walker talks about how to fight viruses in "Virus Protection". Finally, Jeff James reviews the strategy game "Empire" which was named "Overall Best Game of 1988". One more note. I am working on the results of the puzzle contest. Please be patient as it will take me a little while to finish. Like always, I am looking for reader-support in the way of articles or short programs you would like to share with the Amiga community. If you would like to contribute please contact me at one of the locations printed in the magazine's cover/title section. All good PD/shareware software will also be mentioned or reviewed if it is sent to Amy Today. John Rydell (Editor) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Distributing "Amy Today": Amy Today is file-based magazine which has been copyrighted by John Rydell. I am allowing everyone to freely distribute it as long as they give credit to Amy Today for anything taken from the magazine. I also request that the magazine, itself, remains "AS IS" when being distributed. Please do not modify it in any way if you are going to distribute it. About Distributing: Please upload Amy Today EVERYWHERE! This magazine simply will not flourish if it is not uploaded whenever possible. Every issue is kept near 15,000 bytes ARCed so that upload/download time should never be a problem. So, please, if you have the chance spread the magazine around the country! Give a copy to your friend! Keep Amy Today alive and going strong! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Amiga Happenings: (John Rydell) WordPerfect- Word has it that WordPerfect has decided not to release version 5.0 of their wordprocessor for the Amiga. Rather, they are jumping straight to version 6.0 which will hopefully be released by Summer of 1989. Version 6.0 will have graphics as well as text features. Hopefully we will get a REAL Amiga version rather than just an import. EA and Software Etc- I once claimed that Electronic Arts was no longer being sold at Software Etc stores. Well, my local Software Etc just started selling Electronic Arts Amiga software so I have a feeling that my old statement was untrue. Commodore- I'm finally using WorkBench1.3! FFS is a nice addition as my hard drive is now reading slightly over 200,000 bytes per second. Finally, a great improvement by Commodore. Keep it up! Amiga Happenings is a column dedicated to giving you information on what is happening in the Amiga community. Some of the information could possibly be wrong due to the fact that I am trying to get early information. I do not in any way guarantee that the information will be accurate although I will try my hardest to protect the innocent. >>If you have some new information you would like to share please submit it to Amy Today. ############################################################### # Amy Today Trading Galore! Trade public domain or shareware # # software with Amy Today. Look for more information later # # in this issue. --The trade is going strong...participate # # today! # ############################################################### Commodore Announces: (John Rydell) This month there have been many announcements for new, and hopefully exciting, Amiga products. I am not an expert on any of these products nor did I hear about them first hand. Anyway, here is a run-down of the new products that were talked about at the recent Comdex show on November 15. Note that none of the products is ready for release so that none of the information is final. Amiga2000HD- This is Commodore's newest addition to the Amiga line. It is an Amiga 2000 with one meg installed. It comes equipped with a 40 megabyte hard drive run by the 2090A. The hard drive is 28ms and the computer retails for $2,999. Amiga2500- This is a very powerful computer. Its qualities are that it has doubled processor speed, a math co-processor and 2 MB of ram built in. (68020 and 68881 chips included.) It, like the 2000HD, comes with a 40 meg hard drive and retails for $4,699. A590- This is a 20 meg hard drive with a potential 2 megabyte expansion ram for the Amiga 500. It uses 1.3 and DMA for fast transfer. PVA2350- This is a Professional Video Adapter. It is a frame grabber and a real time digitizer. 2286 Bridgeboard- This is a complete 80286 PC AT on a card. It comes with 1 meg of ram and a 5.25 disk drive. I'm assuming that this will allow Amiga owners to run PC software along with their standard Amiga software. (Maybe even at the same time with multi-tasking??) Also talked about where the following products which I really do not know much about: Janus 2.0, a High Resolution Color Graphics Card, a Transputer Parallel Processing workstation, and a 2500UX unix computer. It is good to see that Amiga is developing and supporting their computers. They are even adding peripherals for the Amiga 500 and that is a good sign! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Virus Protection: (Roger Walker) <Reprinted from "Boing!" The Newsletter of the Amiga Users Group of Kansas City> <Editor's Note-I realize that there seems to be a virus craze going on these days and that you probably do not want to hear much more about them. But because I have received so many disks from my readers that have had infections I have decided to include this article. It is quite well written, enjoyable, and informative.> In the last year, the Amiga community has joined the ranks of the other personal computer makes in another area...that of viruses. Virus infected disks have spread through the Amiga community like wildfire, and just about everyone I know has been "bitten" at one time or another. A complete, in-depth discussion of individual viruses and other system infections is beyond the scope of this article, and many magazines have devoted space to this. At least one book has been published on this subject also. What we will attempt to accomplish here is to look at some ways to keep the risk of virus infection low, all the while realizing the real- world need for as much convenience as possible. How safe do you want to be? This becomes the primary question for one simple reason...a matter of convenience. Remember that no matter what you do, no system is totally immune to infection, the same as your home is never totally safe from theft. At the extreme, the most bulletproof way to keep your system safe is once you are sure that your media is clean, never introduce any new software to your machine. While I don't recommend this approach to anyone, there are ways to keep the risks to a minimum: *Check your boot disks for infection, and, after making sure they are clean, WRITE-PROTECT them. I know that this may pose a problem for A1000 and A500 owners who lack a battery backed clock, but I am talking about the first time you run a new program or utility here, and a virus free disk is a lot more important than a date that is a few minutes off! After you are reasonably sure that the file is ok, you may write-enable your boot disk (or better yet, for those of you with more than one drive, simply direct your "date file" to the external disk). *Check all new disks for viruses before use. If you are thinking that you can only be infected by a virus if you use Public Domain software, you are very wrong! Some commercial programs have been plagued with shipping infected disks (one of the most recent examples is the installation disk coming with GVP HardDisk controller cards, and yes, they have been informed of this). *Before running any game that uses copy protection, always shut off the computer for at least 30 seconds before re-booting. This will allow enough time for the power to drain away from the ram chips, and the system should be clean. *Use SafeBoot (versions 2.0) to file away copies of copy protected bootblocks. This program is on AUGKC disk #113, and works from WorkBench as well as CLI. The only drawback? is that this utility uses ARP.library, so remember to include this file on all your boot disks. (For those of you who are "ARPless", there has been an updated version just released as we go to press that does not use this ARP file...) *If you have a hard drive, do not run any new software from it without first trying it out from a floppy or ram disk (especially PD software). Although no current strains of Viruses are known to jeopardize hard disks, that doesn't mean that they can't be written in the future. Also, with the new auto-boot capabilities of WorkBench 1.3, it is not known positively at this time whether this feature will make them vulnerable to the current "boot- block" variety. Although some people have stated that they have been infected by files received via modem, no one that I am aware of has been able to track down any virus to one particular file or program. How Viruses Work: By far the most common type of system infection with the Amiga, a Virus is code that resides in the boot-block of a floppy disk. Currently, all known Amiga viruses live in sector(s) 0 and 1. This section is called the bootblock, since AmigaDOS stores information there that tells the system whether the disk has been formatted (is an AmigaDOS disk), and if it has been installed (or bootable). Your system loads in the bootblock information from every disk inserted into the machine, thereby giving the virus a free ride into your Amiga. To the best of my knowledge, known Viruses can only be spread to another bootable (installed) disk, so you may think twice about installing disks as a matter of practice. If you would like to be able to "uninstall" a disk that you have previously made bootable, the Install command has been modified to allow this with WorkBench 1.3. (Please note that any disk you insert at the WorkBench prompt must have been previously installed in order for the system to come up.) This same bootblock is where some commercial programs (read GAMES) store their copy protection schemes. Since the current strains of Amiga Viruses wedge their code here, they overwrite the custom code thereby making a boot with this disk fail. This is what makes them so deadly to commercial software, as they really don't "harm" regular WorkBench disks. Getting rid of a virus...after infection Some of the viruses have an incubation period. By that, I mean that they keep a running total of disks they have infected, and after a certain number is reached, they come alive and show themselves. (The SCA! virus is one of these.) Most can be found each time you reboot and you are presented with a green colored screen. This green screen is an internal Amiga function meaning that it thinks you have bad RAM. Since the Virus has changed around some things in memory to allow it to survive the system re-boot, it causes this check to fail. Don't worry though, other than being infected, your memory is otherwise fine. Any time you see this screen however, it's time to bring out VirusX and go hunting. If it is too late for this, and you have already infected some disks, there are separate ways to recover from WorkBench disks and copy protected disks. *Workbench disks can just be re-installed, and then the WRITE- PROTECT tab set. Some strains of viruses will immediately re- write themselves back to your boot disk, so you will want to eradicate them from memory as well. *Commercial disks can have their bootblock re-installed using the program SafeBoot (provided you made a copy of the bootblock before you noticed the game was infected!) If you notice that your game disk will still boot, then it doesn't use this form of copy protection. Important note: If you just do a regular AmigaDOS install on the copy protected disk you are in effect doing the same thing as the virus, since you are replacing the custom code with your own. Virus Checking Programs The most important thing here is to get the latest version of a Virus checker that you can get your hands on! Note that the correct file sizes are also listed, as it is possible for someone to modify a virus Checker into a virus infector... VirusX (Version 2.01 11,500 bytes) -- By far, the most popular and powerful of the virus checkers is a public domain program called VirusX, written by Steve Tibbett. VirusX is updated each time a new virus is discovered, and is the single most effective deterrent to infection. VirusX can be run from WorkBench as well as CLI, and is available on one of the AUGKC club disks. Vcheck1.2 (13,192 bytes) and Vcheck1.9 (6,236 bytes) -- Written by Bill Koester of CATS (Commodore Amiga Technical Support), these early virus checkers only check for the SCA! virus. They will however alert you to non-standard boot code. If you see this alert come up and you're running your regular WorkBench disk, it's time to find your copy of VirusX. Both of these are only runnable from the CLI (unless someone has attached them to an Icon for you), and only served as a stopgap measure until the VirusX series appeared. Install (WorkBench 1.3, 2416 bytes) -- For WorkBench 1.3, CBM has modified this command to allow 2 additional things, namely the ability to "un"install a boot disk, and the "check" option which allows you to check for the normal AmigaDOS boot code in the bootblock. While the ability to uninstall a disk is useless for any disk that you want to bring your system up with, it does allow you to safeguard your data disks from the current strains of viruses. Guardian -- Handy for the A1000 owner, this program writes itself to your KickStart disk and therefore is installed before your system is even able to accept a bootable disk. To the best of my knowledge, this file is also available on one of the club disks... Clock.Doctor (8028 bytes) -- Clock.Doctor checks for and removes a virus that resides in the clock memory of A2000's (and A500's with the CBM 512k ram expansion which also comes with the clock circuitry). I have heard that this virus has been found in the Kansas City area, but have not been able to confirm either its existence, or if this viruschecker does check for and find them. Please note that some CATS people have stated that there isn't enough free memory in the clock chip to support virus code, but without actually having a copy of this virus to look at, it is not known if this program does indeed do what it promises. In summary remember that no system is completely safe from infection, but that by using these tips outlined above, you can greatly reduce your risk of infection. <Editor's plea-Please be careful. Viruses are for real and they are floating all over the place! I have now received three disks during my picture trade that VirusX found viruses on. I'd rather not end up distributing a virus, myself. Thanx!> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Empire: (Jeff James) <November 1988 of The Knightly Knews> This month I'm going to review Interstel's latest Amiga software offering, Empire. Empire recently had the distinction of being named "Overall Best Game of 1988" by Computer Gaming World Magazine. Does it deserve it? Empire, first and foremost, is a strategy game. And, to set things straight right from the beginning, Empire is undoubtedly the best strategy game for the Amiga. Period. Game of the Year? I don't think so, but it comes awfully close. Empire is a detailed and complex game of global domination. You can play with up to three players, and any or all of these players can be played by the computer. Each player starts out with a very small chunk of a largely unexplored world, and through the course of the game, each player explores the world around him, builds armies, and tries to manufacture the winning combination of combat units. You can create several different combat units; Armies, Fighters, Destroyers, Submarines, Cruisers, Transports, Carriers, and Battleships. All have differing strengths and weaknesses, and all take different amounts of time to manufacture. Generally, the more powerful the unit, the longer it takes to make. Anyway, to quickly summarize the rest of the game's functions, all players continue to explore, build and conquer until only one of them remains as the supreme ruler of the entire planet. If you like strategy games, you'll love Empire. The game can take hundreds of hours to finish; even spending three hours at the start of the game before you even spot an enemy is not uncommon. <Editor's comment-this game is definitely NOT for everyone!> The box has a label warning users about the addictiveness of the game, and believe me, they aren't liars, either! If you've got a lot of free time, Empire is extremely enjoyable. On the negative side, several parts of the game could use improvement. #1 - The graphics on the two screens you see while the program is loading are absolutely horrible. A C64 could generate better graphics than what I'd seen! (Empire was ported from the Atari ST, so what can I expect?) One screen depicts the cover of the program box. Why didn't they just digitize the front cover with Digi-View? The disk is only about 80% full, so memory would be no problem. #2 - When you win the game, all you get for spending 200+ hours slaving over your keyboard is a cute little sign saying you won. Oh boy; what a peachy keen reward! I almost pulled the plug when I saw that was all I got for winning. I'm sure a nice picture with a nice little ditty playing wouldn't take too much memory. #3 - The games take too long. Even if you play with the computer, you're likely to spend at least 12 hours playing the game. I wish they had an optional limit on the number of turns you can play. These minor annoyances aside, Empire is a thoroughly enjoyable game. If you like strategy games, it is a MUST HAVE. For those of you that like games short and sweet, shy away from Empire. You might find yourself spending weeks playing this highly addictive and engrossing wargame. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Trading Galore: First we had a picture trade. Users were urged to send in a disk full of pictures and, in return, were given a disk full of the best pictures that had been collected so far. The picture trade was, and will hopefully continue to be, a GREAT success! Because of this, I have decided to open up a new trade which allows everyone to participate--not just those of us with pictures. Send me a disk full of anything you want. (Music, Art, Animations, Sound files, and Public Domain/Shareware software...anything!) Include a SASE (please remember the stamps!), and I will send your disk back to you filled with whatever you want. Just tell me whether you want music, art, software (you can even specify a specific pd/shareware program but I can't guarantee that I have it), and I'll send it back. On request, I'll even send disk copies of all issues of Amy Today. The disks currently copied and ready to be traded are: 1 - Amy Today Picture Disk #1 2 - Amy Today Picture Disk #2 3 - Amy Today Animation Disk #1 4 - Amy Today Back Issues #1 5 - Amy Today Music Disk #1** 6 - Amy Today Picture Disk #3** **Both of these coming soon. Send your disk and a SASE to: Amy Today's Trading Galore 640 Willowglen Rd. Santa Barbara, CA 93105 <<Any requests or submissions of illegally copied software will be burned!>> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Newsletter Trading: (From Issue 1-1) I am looking for Amiga user groups who would like to trade newsletters with me. Every month I will send you three issues of Amy Today and, in return, I would like a copy of your newsletter. I know a lot of this trading takes place and would love to get involved. The more articles and information that I have about the Amiga, the better I can make Amy Today. If you are interested please drop me a line on GEnie, Plink, or by mail. I would really appreciate a sample newsletter and will mail you Amy Today in return. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Advertising: Amy Today is open to advertising at VERY affordable prices. Large and small companies both have a great opportunity for quality advertising while supporting a public domain Amiga magazine. If you are interested please write to: Amy Today ATTN Advertising 640 Willowglen Rd. Santa Barbara, CA 93105 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= In the Future: A review of Modula-2 A review of a CLtd 33 meg hard drive An interview with a shareware programmer Maybe even more interviews, also And hopefully numerous articles from you--the readers. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= "Amy Today" is copyright 1988 by John Rydell. Portions of the magazine may be reprinted but the content of this magazine may NOT be changed without the expressed consent of John Rydell. Yet everyone is encouraged to distribute it AS IS. Please give credit to "Amy Today" as well as to the individual author when reprinting material. "Amy Today" as well as any of its authors are not responsible for any damages that occur because of errors or omissions. Articles reprinted from other newsletters, as noted, are not property of Amy Today but are under the control of their original authors. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=