Conference hydra::amiga_v1

    
    Just noticed a boo-boo... that hard disk script file for the NewTek
    demo should read:
    
    	Assign DemoReel3: dh1:Demos/DemoReel3
        Assign DemoReelData: dh1:Demos/DemoReelData
        execute ToRAM
        run >NIL: DemoReelData:Slish
        Assign DemoReel3:
        Assign DemoReelData:
    
    Ed.
    

    Ok guys how do I get it onto my amiga.
    
    I have amiga 500 1 meg (old Agnus chip) and a couple of pd vt100
    emulators which have xmodem.  I only have two 880k floppy drives on my
    system will this be sufficient to run the demo ?
    
    What software on the VMS side do I need to transfer the files to my Amiga.
    
    Where can I get a copy of lharc for the Amiga (or will arc do the
    trick) ?  Can I lharc them on the VMS first before transferring ?
    
    Thanks (not to cluely on communication guys),
    
    Walter Zambotti.
    Perth Western Australia.

    FYI - the ability to reconstruct directory structures is a new feature
    of LHARC V1.0, the older version (0.50) won't unpack these archives
    correctly.  I grabbed a copy of the newer LHARC from:
        DICKNS""::USER:[MACDONALD.AMIGA.NEW]LHARC10.ARC

The files I got off CIS used this command for decompressing:

LHARC -m -r x filename

    
    >				    I only have two 880k floppy drives on my
    > system will this be sufficient to run the demo ?
    
    Yes, any 1 meg machine should do it.
    
    If you do a 'DIR/TITLE=UPLOAD' or 'DOWNLOAD' you should find plenty of
    notes detailing where the VMS Xmodem and related files can be found,
    along with good instructions on how to get started.
    
    Once you get a copy of LHARC off of the net (good places to look are
    NORSE""::AMIGA and TAPE::USER2:[AMIGA]), put LHARC in the c: directory
    of your Workbench disk.  Download the .LZH files to seperate disks, and
    copy them one at a time to RAM:.
    
    Once the .LZH file is in RAM: you can CD to df1: and issue the
    unpacking command, and the files should automagically unpack themselves
    to your freshly formatted disk in DF0:
    
    Ed. 

    Ed, thanks for uploading the NewTek demos, etc.  I took a look at
    the Dynamic pics last night, and thought "Those are nice".  Then
    I went back and looked at them closely and thought "WOW, these are
    fantastic".  I really hope that this 'mode' becomes more than just
    something to impress your friends.  It may well take all of a stock
    Amiga's cycles, but what about us 68020 or 30 owners.  We should 
    have plenty of CPU to spare.  Perhaps the custom chips are the 
    limiting factor here.
    
    The only thing I've seen that is comparable (for 'home' computers), is
    a MAC II equipped with a 24-bit graphics board, and 'super'-monitor.
    Of course, this is a $12K+ setup.  That you can even display images of
    such high quality on a 'stock' Amiga is incredible.  What's an A500
    go for these days?  I realize it's apple and oranges, but still
    amazing.
    
    ~Steve               

    
    Nice stuff, that dynamic hires has a lot of potential.  I looked
    at the picture file, nice to see that they are using IFF format.
    I hope they are documenting and registering the new chunks with
    Commodore.
    
    Ed, many thanks for uploading it.  The suspense was killing me.
    
    One thing bothered me though about those pictures - lots of browns,
    tans and grey - no high contrast color transitions.  The overscan
    was nice, but that must chew up a lot of cycles, maybe that reduced
    the number of color transitions they could do on a scan line?
    
    -Dave
    p.s. it should be possible to do a paint program for dynamic hires,
    512 and 4096 color paint programs exists for similar modes on the
    atari st.  Just restrict the program to only working on a section
    of the picture at a time, with a preview mode to display the full
    picture.

    
    Thought you might like to know that the Digiview 4.0 viewer has a
    little problem with a GVP '030 in that the basic picture comes up but
    there is a lot of color flickering on individual lines.  It seems that
    the color palette change during retrace is based on the standard 68000
    cpu rate and with the 25mhz 030 the palette change is happening during
    the scan.
    
    I guess that DigiView 4.0 still won't work with the 030 just like V3.0. 
    I hope to receive my copy soon so I'll be finding out.
    
    wayne
    

    I loaded down DYNA yesterday and thought "The Look" was pretty
    impressive, photographic to my untrained eye. Haven't got the demo-reel
    files loaded down yet, as didn't have time (@1200 baud).
                             
    
    thanks for posting them.
    
    Regards
    	Mike

Wayne,

>  there is a lot of color flickering on individual lines.

I have found the NewTek demo does not (definitely) like an overscanned 
workbench (ala morerows). I found the Digi F/X breaks up terribly. It seems 
they used page flipped SHAM (!!) for the annimated sequences. I have found no
difference with my A2060 based A2000 in either 68020 or 68000 mode. My A500
does have some problems with dynamic hires getting flickers, but I think 
this is due to Field Test Denise or a very early super Agnus. I have a 68010
in the A500.

Anyway, the point I am making is that problems with the NewTek demo Reel 3
may be related to an overscan workbench.


	Thanks,
		-SES

    Can anyone who has seen this demo describe the opening sequence?
    Bill Leimberger and I downloaded/unpacked it to provide Steve at
    System Eyes with the new demo. This is a great demo (I think it's
    even better than the previous) but the beginning seemed screwy.
    What I witnessed was (from memory; oh the curse of the 512K
    machine):

         The countdown (...8...7...6...).

         A NewTek logo appears (although it might have been there
         before the countdown).

         Then a small "window" appears near the bottom of the
         screen with what looks like Betty Boop with a bad case
         of UHF fringe reception. Then another equally "snowy"
         image overlays the bottom half of the screen and a
         larger "window" appears with a washed out "NewTek girl"
         spouting "Welcome back to ..." or something like that.

    After that, the rest looks great. I wasn't sure if this was the
    intended effect or not. Sorry for the vague descriptions but if
    you see it, I think you'll know what I mean.
    The machine displaying the demo was a one meg 500 with an external
    floppy and an A590 slapped on the side. The download and LHARC
    unpacking completed without error.

    Comments anyone?

    Pete

This demo was pretty good. But I do like the last demoreel better.


But I have a question. If this is demoreel 3, then the previous one must have
been demoreel 2  so where's demoreel 1?

John 

    I was under the impression that there were only 2 NewTek demos, 
    and this one was called DemoReel3 because DigiPaint also went
    from 1 to 3 (skipping 2).  Maybe not?
    
    ~Steve - is the first demo available on the net?

RE: .12, .13

DemoReel2 was shown by NewTek at some trade shows, but never released for 
distribution. DemorReel1 and DemoReel3 are the only ones in general 
circulation.

I agree about the tiny images from DemoReel1 that are on the "TV Screen" in 
the intro to DemoReel3 - They are pretty fuzzy.

	-SES

    The funny look Pete saw was due to the hardware configuration.The
    demo was running on a 1meg 500 with a zero k a590 disk drive.The
    best we could figure was the hard drive cut into available memory.
    	We ran the demo on a 2500,and a 2000 an had no problems.I like
    it better than the original,even if it moves a little slower.It
    should be interesting to see if anyone else has problems with it.
    As for the pictures,they displayed fine with dyna-show on a 512k
    Amiga 1000 .Now to ordr my update..........
    								bill

RE: .11

You should have seen a picture of a wall with a small portable TV set at
the bottom. The TV screen was showing the Betty Boop. It then turns to a
closeup of the TV set with Maxine's animation. The purpose of this
opening sequence is to tie it into the first demo that contained Betty
Boop and some of the other figures and music that appear at the
beginning of DemoReel3.

Re: .14

>RE: .12, .13
>
>DemoReel2 was shown by NewTek at some trade shows, but never released for
>distribution. DemorReel1 and DemoReel3 are the only ones in general
>circulation.

Steve's right.  DemoReel2 consisted of several short animated segments
made from frames grabbed from one of the Star Trek movies and "Aliens."
(I believe that this was a demo for the prototype video toaster.)

When I was at AmiExpo in New York a year ago, I overheard a conversation
between Laura "Maxine Headroom" Longfellow and one of the convention
attendees:

	"Why don't you release demo reel 2?"

	"Because when we showed it the first time in California,
      someone from Paramount Pictures saw it.  We got a call from
      their lawyers."

    
    Warning:  Sexist remark coming; read at your own risk!
    
    I dunno about the rest of you males, but I am absolutely madly in love
    with Laura Longfellow, aka Maxine Headroom.  She has a kind of
    school-girl-ish charm and an irresistable smile.  The kind of girl Tom
    Sawyer would marry.
    
    Randy, is she as lovely in person as she is on the Amiga?
    
    Ed.

    I just took the NewTek demo down to a local dealership along with a
    heap of the Badge Killer demos.
    
    The guy was VERY pleased.
    
    We ran up the NEWTEK demo on a 2500 and "The Look" didn't display very
    well at all, like completely garbaged. So we displayed it from the
    "Dyna" demo later while running under the 68000. The other interesting
    thing I noted was that he had a normal crude colour monitor and as NEC
    Multisync II attached to the system. In some cases the el-cheapo
    monitor did a better job as far as colours go.
    
    This was all run on PAL Amigas. I got a bit of garbage/noise across the
    bottom of "The Look" picture in the NEWTEK demo, whereas it was fine
    when displayed as part of the "Dyna" demo. My Ami is a stock standard
    A500, 1mb, 2 floppies running KS 1.2/WB 1.3 and of course PAL.
    
    Regards
    	Mike

    Hmmmmm.....
    I can display the dynamic-ham pictures separately, but "TheLook" does
    not appear *AT ALL* during the demo reel!  I assume it's supposed to
    follow the screen with the words "get close", right?  Are others seeing
    this picture during the demo reel?  The rest of the demo looks great.
    
    I'm using a 3meg 2000.  I've run the demo from floppies and from the
    hard disk with identical results.

I had no problems on a stock (3 meg) 2500. All the pictures seemed to be what
they should be (whatever that means!).

Shame about demoreel 2.   When I bought my first Amiga (A500) I saw the
demoreel 1 and a real neat scene of a cat running in a rectangular "picture
frame". The picture frame was rotating about a vertical axis through it's
center - awesome!

Anyone seen this one (I thought that *might* be part of demoreel 2)?

John

Re: The cat in the revolving frame.

	No, this isn't part of demoreel2, it's a separate demo entirely, 
called "El Gato".  Should be on the net somewhere.  If you can't find it, 
let me know, and I'll see if I can dig it up, and upload.

Mark

re. ElGato

Got it! It was on TAPE:: in FF125.

Thanks!  That demo *sold* me on Amiga!

John

    re:.24
    
    Same here.  The rotating cat "El Gato" demo had my jaw hitting the
    floor when I first saw it.  That demo *sold* me on Amiga, however it
    was at least a couple of years later before I bought one.  I did get
    a tiger colored cat during that time though...I wonder if those events
    are related...
    
    A walking dititized cat is not that impressive, but add in the box
    rotating and its up with the "how did they do that" category.
    
    dennis

    
    Re: *
    
    ... and what can I tell ya? (Famous SNL quote)
    
    I'm not too impressed with the new demo, and I'm VERY disappointed
    by the dynamic hi-res stuff.
    It has problem in PAL, the bottom of the screen contains garbage.
    It doesn't work in a non 68000 mode. Booo Hisss.
    It flashes the ready lights of my df1: and df2: drive. 
    Hang 'em HIGH for hardware mucking!!!
    
    I'm however not objecting the quality of the these pictures, alas
    some good algorithms CAN work wonders in HAM mode, as mentioned
    in an earlier reply.
    
    Regards,
    
    <CB>

    I noticed the lights flashing on the dealers demo 2000, but I didnt
    notice it on my A500, though my power light went out (filter off?)
    
    There was garbage on the bottom of the screen during the demo on my
    500, but using the separate DYNA demo it was ok.
    
    The dealers A2000 running with the '020 really screwed up when it tried
    to display "The Look".
    
    It's amazing what can be done on a 'limited' resolution display.
    
    	Mike
    

    <<< Note 3181.27 by NOTIBM::MCGHIE "Thank Heaven for small Murphys !" >>>

>    I noticed the lights flashing on the dealers demo 2000, but I didnt
>    notice it on my A500, though my power light went out (filter off?)

This is mentioned in the documentation that comes with DigiView 
4.0.  They also make a subtle apology for 'mucking with the 
hardware' but say that it is part of the price of progress.  At 
least they have made Dynamic Hi-Res files IFF files.  

Randy
    
    

RE:.26

CB,

It works fine for me with an A2620! It does have problems with my early
field test super-Agnus. It is not the ...72A version, just the ...72 version.
It is in my A500 with an early super Denise. I assumed this was the problem
since all was well on the A2620 with dynamic Hi-Res.

The Digi-F/X is another matter. As mentioned before, it does NOT like 
running on an amiga with an overscan Workbench... but it too works fine
with my A2620.

It all seems to work fine on my NTSC Amiga 2500 (020).

John

    works fine too on my 3meg 2000.
    
    Flickering the floppy drive lights is a bit unprofessional for a
    program that just displays pictures.
    
    Hmmm... you don't suppose they hired one of "those" folks who
    do those great demos with copperlists, and that person couldn't
    resist the urge to hit the hardware :-)
    
    At least they have now proven that it could be done.  That ends
    the debate on if the hardware was capable of it.  Now comes the
    question of how to make those techniques useful in a multitasking 
    environment.
    
    What about a 16 color workbench that doesn't require extra bitplanes,
    it just gives you a choice 16 colors per scan line instead of 4
    by flipping color palettes.
    
    -Dave
                               

    Mike,
    
    The 'garbage' that you get on the bootom of the Demo-reel picture
    that you don't get on the Dyna-show picture is caused by the fact that
    the Demo-reel plays music at the same time as it shows the picture.
    
    Pretty good I say considering there was not meant to be any clock
    cycles left.
    
    Thanks to th eperson for uploading onto the net - this will sell
    amiga's in all countrys.
    
    Shaun.
    

    Re: .29, et al
           
    I dunno of the top of my head what kinda Super-Agnus I've got currently
    plugged in, but it works just nice (from an overscan PAL workbench)
    if in 68000 mode, but not if in 68020 mode.
    
    <CB>

How many people out there have had problems with the New Tek DemorReel3 demo
becasue it wouldn't display "The Look" when you ran the demo.  I have this 
problem too and discovered a really simple and stupid fix.  Just cd into
demoreeldata: and run slish.  It doesn't like and won't find it if you don't.
Of course the nice thing is the demo doesn't bomb if it doesn't find something.

Now for my question, what is the secret for stopping the demo without having
to re-boot?  This is really annoying to have to!  Thanks!

    Yeah, it took me a while to figure out how to stop it.  I discovered
    that there is an invisible 'close gadget' in the upper left corner of
    the screen.  Just poke around that area and you'll find it...

    This will quit the demo, but make sure to check out your RAM:
    disk afterwards.  The demo doesn't delete the files that it
    moves into RAM:.  Other than that, it seems to clean up pretty
    well. 
    
    ~Steve

Re: .19

>    I dunno about the rest of you males, but I am absolutely madly in love
>    with Laura Longfellow, aka Maxine Headroom.  She has a kind of
>    school-girl-ish charm and an irresistable smile.

You're not the only one: she spends a lot of time signing autographs
at the NewTek booth!

>    Randy, is she as lovely in person as she is on the Amiga?

Mostly I remember being incredibly impressed about how pleasant she
was when she answered "Why isn't the toaster out?" for the 3778th
time that day.

I've thought that things certainly have turned out interesting
for her.  She joins a small company (it couldn't have been much
more than a few guys in a garage initially) as its business person.
One day, the company needs a demo ("We need a snappy demo. I know!
Let's digitize Laura!").  She becomes a minor celebrity and
part-time spokesmodel.

It must be quite a rush to have a few hundred people ask you for
your autograph...

    Why isn't the Toaster out?  :')
    
    John

    Is there a way to make the Demoreel3 disk created by LHARC bootable?
    I noticed that there was a 's' directory, and a startup-sequence file
    so I figured there must be a way to do it.  I'm new to the Amiga world,
    so I'm probably missing something simple...
    
    Thanks for any help,
    Dave

    Sure.  You can make any amiga floppy bootable via the AmigaDOS command
    INSTALL.  Just put the disk in one of your drives (DF1: if you have two
    drive) and then enter the command "INSTALL <drive>"  
    (ex. "INSTALL DF1:").  This will write a boot block to that disk and
    you can then boot from it.
    
    					John

    Is DYNA the new NewTek demo reel 3? If not, where can I find it?
    
    Also, I downloaded DYNA.LZH using Zmodem, but kept getting a CRC
    error on the archive file. Is anyone else having this problem?
    
    					Thanks in advance

DYNA is the viewer and a couple pictures.

WJG::AMIGA:

DEMOREEL3-1.LZH;1       461/462      4-DEC-1989 23:07:12.00  (RWED,RWED,RE,R)
DEMOREEL3-2.LZH;1       476/477      4-DEC-1989 23:08:08.00  (RWED,RWED,RE,R)
DEMOREEL3-3.LZH;1       317/318      4-DEC-1989 23:08:50.00  (RWED,RWED,RE,R)
DEMOREEL3-4.LZH;1       445/447      4-DEC-1989 23:10:03.00  (RWED,RWED,RE,R)
DEMOREEL3-5.LZH;1       463/465      4-DEC-1989 23:10:40.00  (RWED,RWED,RE,R)
DEMOREEL3-6.LZH;1       356/357      4-DEC-1989 23:11:17.00  (RWED,RWED,RE,R)


Is the demo reel.

John

re. <<< Note 3181.41 by MSVAX::BARRETT "Who is Steve Dahl?" >>>
    
    DYNA is a subset of the Newtek reel - includes THEFACE and ROCKS.
    (ROCKS isn't on the Newtek demo). Also MORE_DYNA has two other
    pix, one of a delicious looking lobster and another beach scene. (Mike
    McGhie prefers the Lobster, I like the beach scene :-})
    
    The Newtek demo is a 3 file set called demoreel1-1,*1-2,*1-3 (from
    memory). They are all .LZH files.
    
    I took the Newtek demo to my local store the other day and they had
    just received the same demo from Newtek (or whoever the local
    australian agent is) - so it is officially at the dealers now.
    
    I also had CRC problems with the DYNA.LZH. so I carried on and fired it
    up anyway. THEFACE was cut off about half way thru' - but since that
    one is in the NEWTEK demo I wasn't worried.
    
    regards
    	kevin
          

    Just got ahold of some new dynamic high-res pictures which are
    outstanding! They appear to be ray-traced. They can be found in 
    
    	tape::user2:[upload]dynas.zip

re. -1
    
>    	tape::user2:[upload]dynas.zip
                                  ^^^
    
    Where can I get something to unzip this ?
    
    tom
    
    

    See note 3292 for the location of the zip utility.