ST Report: 20-Mar-98 #1411
From: Bruce D. Nelson (aa789@cleveland.Freenet.Edu)
Date: 04/14/98-12:16:22 PM Z
From: aa789@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Bruce D. Nelson)
Subject: ST Report: 20-Mar-98 #1411
Date: Tue Apr 14 12:16:22 1998
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Florida Lotto - LottoMan v1.35
Results: 03/14/98: two of six numbers with no matches
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From the Editor's Desk...
Today is the FIRST DAY of SPRING!
It never ceases to amaze me. What am I talking about? Here's the
scoop... How can we as mature adults expect our children to be of
fine character, upstanding and trustworthy when our own politicos
are of shallow character and do not keep their word? First, the
State of Florida guided by Lawton Chiles and now, the State of
Texas under George Bush Jr... have reneged on agreements they made
with two different Trial Attorney Teams willing to take up the
fight with Big Tobacco at their own expense. When Big Tobacco
lost... and the BIG money was awarded, both States began to welsh
out on their agreements with the lawyers who won the cases for each
respective State.
The bottom line is the Lawyers took on the cases with the
understanding that they would bear the cost of all litigation in
return for a percentage of the award if they won. That translates
into roughly a couple of million per case was spent before the
awards were made by the juries. So, the Lawyers invested their own
heavy money to try the cases and won!
Now, one can only wonder if the jelly backs in both governor's
offices would have come forward and said to the lawyers if they had
lost... "We'll reimburse a large percentage of the monies spent to
bring these cases to trial." I'm willing to bet neither the Bush
nor the Chiles administration would've been so gallant. Once again,
the crumball politicians set a fine, upstanding example for our
young people. "You don't have to keep your word, back out and screw
over those who deliver positive results and keep their word."
Chiles can't run this year for re-election but another of the "Bush
Clan" is running here in Florida... presumably an old buddy of
Keaton's (remember that name?) I'll NOT vote for him. I'll not even
consider "Jeb Bush" a viable candidate. Not after the
"Bushwhacking" the Nation withstood under Daddy, George Bush Sr.
(Can You say; Panama's Noriega and mass murder, Grenada,
Iran-Contra, CIA Crack Coke in CA.?? ((George Bush Sr. ran the CIA
at one time!))) and now Texas, under his Brother George. Sorry,
I've seen far too many "Bushwhackings" to feel comfy with yet
another Bush running Florida as governor. "Jeb Bush... Go back to
Texas".....
And we all wonder why the crime rate in schools across the nation
are on the rise....
This past week, the sealed documents sent to Judge Jackson by
Lawrence Lessig were unsealed and disclosed by an Appeals Court in
Washington DC. Would you believe, that "True To Form" the
"Unbiased" Yale "Perfesser" had already told Judge Penfield Jackson
that he felt (in so many words) that Microsoft had overstepped its
bounds and should be decided against. This is unbiased???
After all, Lessig has had nothing to do since being removed from
the case temporarily. These comments were part of his (Lessig's)
original statements to Jackson. Both Jackson and Lessig should be
permanently removed from having anything to do with this case.
Besides, it's a known fact Lessig uses a MAC and not a Windows
Machine and has on several occasions vehemently expressed his
dislike of Microsoft and everything they represent. Nothing fair
and unbiased here!
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Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
Antitrust Enforcer Says No Decision On Microsoft
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Justice Department's top antitrust
enforcer said his agency had not yet decided how to proceed
against Microsoft. Assistant Attorney General Joel Klein
said the agency was still gathering facts in its
wide-ranging investigation of the Microsoft.
"We have made no determination what, if any, action we will
take and no determination if we were to take action as to
what remedy," Klein told reporters after a speech to an
investor conference in Washington sponsored by Legg Mason
Wood Walker. Asked about a report in the Wall Street Journal
that the department was unlikely to block the release of
Microsoft's Windows 98 product, Klein said, "From our point
of view, that story was way ahead of where we are."
The Justice Department took Microsoft to court last year
charging that the world's leading software company was using
its dominant position in computer operating systems to break
into the market for Internet browsers in violation of a 1995
consent decree. Under a preliminary ruling in that
proceeding, Microsoft was required to offer personal
computer manufacturers versions of its Windows 95 software
with and without its Internet Explorer browser.
At the same time, the Justice Department has opened a broad
investigation into a host of Microsoft business practices
that may violate U.S. antitrust laws. The company intends to
fully integrate its Internet Explorer product into Windows
98, expected to be released in May or June. Those plans
could be put at risk if the Justice Department sought to
force Microsoft to offer a version of Windows 98 without the
browser.
The Journal, citing unnamed people close to the case,
reported that the department "probably won't" stop Microsoft
from releasing a version of Windows 98 that includes the
browser. The newspaper said the department was considering
requiring Microsoft to release two versions of Windows 98,
one with the browser and one without. Microsoft has
repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and has appealed the
preliminary injunction that required it to offer a version
of Windows 95 without a browser included.
Microsoft has steadily gained ground in the so-called
browser wars, capturing significant market share in the last
year from Netscape Communications. But the company has
recently backed away from some of its most aggressive
tactics by removing restrictive clauses in contracts with
Internet service providers that want to offer Microsoft's
browser product.
U.S. Expands Microsoft investigation
The U.S. Justice Department has expanded its antitrust probe
of Microsoft Corp. to include issues related to Sun
Microsystems Inc.'s Java software, the Wall Street Journal
reported Tuesday in its electronic edition. The Journal said
Sun confirmed the company had received a civil subpoena
regarding Microsoft from the Justice Department. Sun also
has received separate subpoenas from several states also
investigating the software giant.
The move expands the government's probe beyond Microsoft's
practices in the web-browser market, the paper said. Sun's
Java software is seen as a potential competitor to the
Microsoft Windows operating system, and Sun's chief
executive Scott McNealy is an ardent Microsoft critic. Sun
has filed a civil suit against Microsoft alleging violations
of its licence to use Java, the Journal said.
Microsoft Ramps Up Washington Lobbying
Microsoft Corp. dramatically ramped up efforts to influence
the federal government in the past year as it became
enmeshed in a fierce legal battle with antitrust regulators,
newly disclosed reports to the government show. Microsoft
spent $1.2 million trying to nfluence Congress and the
Clinton administration in the second half of 1997 alone,
nearly double the $660,000 the software giant spent during
the first six months of the year. Microsoft's total spending
on lobbying efforts in Washington last year was $1.9
million, up 67% from 1996.
Microsoft's Gates Sees Windows 98 Mid-year
SYDNEY - Microsoft chief executive Bill Gates said today
that he expected the Seattle- based software giant would
launch its Windows 98 computer operating system around the
middle of the year. "This year we will be launching Windows
98...midway through the year," Gates told reporters in
Sydney. The U.S. Department of Justice is in court
proceedings against Microsoft, charging the leading software
developer violated a 1995 consent decree aimed at increasing
competition in the industry.
At one point the Justice Department asked to be able to
review new versions of Windows, saying Microsoft was in
contempt of a judge's order to offer Windows 95 to computer
makers without bundling in its Web browsing software. That
request was dropped when Microsoft and the Justice
Department came to an agreement. Gates said Microsoft was in
the final stages of beta testing for Windows 98 and its
latest NT version.
He said results in recent weeks had been encouraging and
Microsoft was on target to launch the product in the middle
of the year. "We are getting quite confident we will be able
to do that, " he said. Gates said there was no prospect that
legal action taken by the Justice Department would affect
the product launch.
Fujitsu Makes Life Tougher for U.S. Disk Makers
PALO ALTO, Calif. - Fujitsu, long a has-been in the computer
disk drive business, has been causing some real headaches
lately for its rivals. By all accounts, Fujitsu Computer
Products of America, the disk drive unit of the Japanese
computer giant, has made a remarkable recovery in the past
two years. It has been stealing business from competitors
like Seagate Technology and Quantum and forcing disk drive
prices down.
The company has doubled unit shipments and doubled its
market share in each of the past two years. It is now the
world's fifth-biggest disk drive supplier. It also has
managed to introduce bigger, faster and cheaper drives,
winning business from key computer makers like Compaq
Computer, Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems. While the
rest of the disk drive industry is reeling from huge losses
and massive price cuts, Fujitsu's disk drive operation will
double its revenue in 1998 to over $2 billion, said Larry
Sanders, chief executive of the disk drive unit.
"December of 1997 was the biggest month in revenue, unit
shipments and profits in the history of this company,"
Sanders said in a recent interview. Fujitsu's biggest month
was the same period when rivals Seagate and Quantum were
warning investors that they would not meet Wall Street's
earnings expectations because of a huge worldwide disk drive
glut. A newly competitive Fujitsu was part of the reason,
analysts said. "They are definitely in an aggressive growth
mode," said James Porter, principle of market researcher
Disk/Trend Inc. in Los Altos, Calif. "They've gained market
share from the high end to the low end."
Fujitsu, based in Tokyo, is the world's second-biggest
computer maker after International Business Machines. In the
early 1980s, it was a powerhouse in disk drives, the main
storage devices in most computers. But in the early 1990s,
it stumbled badly because of poor marketing and slow product
development. It could not develop bigger and faster drives
as quickly as its American rivals were and lost business to
rivals who could keep up with the rapid product cycles of
the PC industry.
Enter Sanders, a 25-year veteran of the computer peripherals
business, with stints at Connor Peripherals and IBM. In
1995, he took over Fujitsu Computer Products of America,
based in San Jose, Calif. Sanders said that when he started,
Fujitsu was focusing all its energy on quality and
technology, but wasn't paying enough attention to reacting
quickly to market demand. "The problem was, they measured
everything in days and weeks," Sanders said. "But our
industry measures things in hours. If Compaq has a problem
they don't say get back to me in a couple of days. They say
get back to me in a couple of hours."
So Fujitsu brought more of its sales and marketing efforts
from Japan to San Jose, closer to U.S. PC makers. Fujitsu
also is doing more of its product design in the U.S. to keep
breast of customers' needs. Sanders said he now has 20
engineers working for him here, up from just three 18 months
ago. Meanwhile, Fujitsu makes most of its drives in Asian
countries like the Philippines. So Fujitsu's manufacturing
costs are dropping as Asian currencies collapse.
The changes seem to be paying off. Sanders said he expects
Fujitsu to become a second source of disk drives for EMC, a
computer company that currently gets all of its drives from
Seagate. He also expects bigger orders for Fujitsu's
high-end drives at Compaq and Sun, other big Seagate
accounts. "So far, Sanders seems to be doing a very good
job," said Paul Fox, analyst at investment bank NationsBanc
Montgomery Securities. "It's a combination of everything --
quality, manufacturing, yields, costs, time to market with
product."
Still, Fujitsu would not be immune if worldwide computer
sales drop. Excess inventory at companies like Compaq could
slow component purchases, hampering Fujitsu's growth,
analysts said. Plus, the glut of disk drives is not expected
to shrink until the second half of 1998. To make profit in
the business this year, disk drive makers have to
concentrate on higher- margin server and laptop drives.
Seagate and IBM both are stepping up development in those
areas.
Yahoo!, MCI Offer New Internet Service
Internet search engine Yahoo! Inc. expanded its online
domain with the launch of an Internet service that will
offer customers direct access to the Internet. The new
service is a joint venture of Yahoo! and MCI Communications
Corp., called "Yahoo! Online powered by MCI Internet." While
Yahoo's Web site is already one of the most popular
destinations on the Internet, online users previously had to
use another Internet service provider, such as America
Online to get there. Now they will be able to make their
initial connection to the Internet through the Yahoo
service. The companies are charging $14.95 per month for
unlimited local access, which will go up to $19.95 after
three months for all customers who are not MCI long-distance
customers.
New Internet Address Word Codes Spell Trouble
LOS ANGELES - A new Internet product designed to simplify
address codes backfired on its launch day with users landing
on a pornography site when they punched in "Bambi" for
material on the lovable Disney character. A start-up Silicon
Valley company marketing the product said the reason for the
malfunction was that the new system was not yet fully
deployed and users needed to download software from its Web
site first.
When Keith Teare, president of centraal of Palo Alto,
announced the product to Reuters on Wednesday, he said it
would do away with the multiple dots and slashes that make
many Internet addresses hard to get right, and replace them
with Web site addresses that even a child can remember. He
said that if a user wanted Disney's Bambi page, they could
type in one word "Bambi" instead of having to type a long,
complicated series of words. Disney's Jungle Book site, for
example, is
www.disney.com/DisneyVideos/masterpieces/shelves/theJungleBook/index.html
The short-cut failed miserably and the result was a torrent
of complaints from users who typed in the word and wound up
on a porn site with whips and chains instead of the doe-eyed
creature.
"I tried just entering Bambi. Oooooops!," said one user,
while another complained, "THIS AIN'T DISNEY BOYS!" "I was
shocked to see a pornographic web page pop up instead of the
Walt Disney Web page for Bambi as you stated in your
article," one irate user complained to Reuters. The user
added: "Given that you mention in your lead that these new
addresses are something even a child can remember, I think
the implications are not what you intended. I'd hate to see
kids trying this out and being exposed to this filth."
Teare said the system will work if users first downloaded
the software from his Web site -- www.realnames.com , which
alas was not working at all on Thursday due to technical
problems. He added that he hopes to eventually make it
available through all the major Internet browsers. "I think
I might not use the Bambi example anymore," he said. Teare
added that he was surprised that computers made the jump to
a porn site with an incomplete address.
Centraal says it has signed 150 customers, like Walt Disney,
and gives them the right to use the simplified address in
print and media advertising. The hope is that the new
addresses will bring more people to Web sites that currently
have long, unintelligible addresses. Teare said the system
was designed to make the Internet more consumer- friendly,
by replacing cumbersome addresses with easy-to-remember
brand names. One of the company's slogans is: "No more
www.dots/slashes/more slashes." It said its customers
include Amazon.com, Federal Express, and Volkswagen.
Internet Addresses Spark EU-U.S. Custody fight
BRUSSELS - A U.S. proposal to reform the system for
allocating Internet addresses has caused a transatlantic
debate over who should guide the global computer network
into the 21st century. The European Commission, mounting a
custody battle of sorts, has accused the United States of
not doing enough to involve other countries in its plans.
But opinion is also divided in the country that gave birth
to the Internet over how to regulate cyberspace now that it
sprawls the globe.
The immediate conflict involves the system of numbers and
letters that allows users to send electronic mail or call up
World Wide Web sites by typing in the right address. The
U.S. government manages core parts of the system, reflecting
the Net's origins as a U.S. defense intelligence tool. But
in a "green paper" published last month, the Commerce
Department laid out a plan for handing over to the private
sector -- prompting a reproach from the European Union
executive body.
"The...proposals appear not to recognize the need to
implement an international approach," the Commission said in
a draft reply that it has asked the 15 EU countries to
adopt. The main dispute involves who should register and
administer "generic top-level domains" -- the popular
Internet addresses that end in suffixes such as .com, .org
and .net. Those domains -- for commercial users, non-profit
bodies and network service providers -- are now registered
solely by Network Solutions (NSI), a U.S. company under
contract to the U. S. National Science Foundation.
Washington's plan, spearheaded by Internet policy guru Ira
Magaziner, would break NSI's monopoly and respond to the
exploding demand for addresses by adding five new top-level
domains, each with a new registry to manage the database.
Companies would then compete, for profit, to register new
Internet addresses with NSI and the new registries. The plan
would also set up a U.S.-based non-profit corporation to
manage the underlying numerical addresses that computers use
to locate Internet sites when a user types in a domain name.
The U.S. initiative has thrown a wrench into a competing
plan drawn up by a global coalition of companies and groups
that has set up a Council of Registrars (CORE) in Geneva and
had hoped to start registering new Internet addresses this
month. That coalition, which has more than 200 signatories
ranging from France Telecom to Digital Equipment
Corporation, adopted a scheme last year to add seven new
top-level domains, with the databases managed by CORE.
It would allow new addresses to end in .shop, .firm, .web,
.arts, .rec, .info and .nom. CORE has signed up 88
registrars in 23 countries, including 35 in the EU, who have
already accepted thousands of applications for Internet
addresses. "All the software and hardware were created to
handle all these registrations," said Siegfried Langenbach,
a German member of the CORE executive committee. "A good
many registrars were taking pre- registrations -- customers
were calling them, saying we would like to have this name."
The U.S. paper stopped the effort in its tracks, leading
some CORE backers to feel betrayed. "We were encouraged by
Magaziner and his services to go ahead," said Alan
McCluskey, coordinator of the CORE secretariat. "It was only
at the last minute, when they were preparing the green
paper, that we started to realize they had other ideas in
their heads."
A U.S. official responded that the Clinton administration
had always been ambivalent about the CORE proposal, although
the green paper had built on its work. He said the Americans
wanted a system that relied less on international bodies,
citing CORE's close links to the U.N.'s International
Telecommunications Union. "We want to see an Internet led by
the private sector, self-regulatory and in terms of
management structure a lean, mean machine," he said. The
move has heightened fears in Europe that the United States
wants to maintain a kind of hegemony over the Internet.
The Commission complained that the plan could consolidate
U.S. jurisdiction over trademark conflicts involving
Internet addresses, ignoring dispute resolution procedures
set up by the World Intellectual Property Organization. CORE
officials criticized the effort for being too "U.S.-
centric" and failing to fully break down NSI's monopoly.
The U.S. Internet community is also divided over which way
to go. CORE's approach has been endorsed by various
"godfathers" of U.S. cyberspace, including Jon Postel, head
of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, which runs
cyberspace's numerical address system.
But some industry groups have attacked it for attempting to
hijack the address system and shift it overseas, away from
the jurisdiction of U.S. law and U.S. courts. Andrew
Sernovitz, president of the Association for Interactive
Media, said in a statement last summer that CORE had been
set up by "self-appointed autocrats" who favored a "world
government over the Internet." AIM represents more than 300
new media companies and big Internet users.
Sernovitz told Reuters the green paper was "one of the most
fair, straightforward documents I've ever seen come out of a
government." The U.S. official stressed that the paper was
only a draft and likely to be changed on the basis of public
comments, which are due by March 23.
New Company Sendmail To Attack Internet Spam
SAN FRANCISCO - Sendmail has released a new set of software
tools to combat junk mail -- or spam -- on the Internet, the
new startup company said. The privately held company based
in Emeryville, Calif., was formed to commercialize the
software developed by Eric Allman, a UNIX programmer who
wrote the first version of the software 17 years ago while
working at the University of California at Berkeley.
Sendmail will continue Allman's practice of giving the
software away for free over the Internet, but at the same
time it will distribute commercial products for Internet
service providers and corporate customers.
"The Internet's infrastructure has to remain free for the
good of the Net," Allman, who is the company's chief
technology officer, said in a statement. Sendmail, which
counts among its first investors Sun Microsystems
co-founders Bill Joy and Andy Bechtolsheim, launched
Sendmail 8.9 at a trade show in Baltimore. The newest
version of Sendmail addresses one of the biggest problems on
the Internet, junk mail, with a software tool set that it
calls the most "most capable weapon available against the
spread of spam."
Allman created the initial version of Sendmail as a program
to route messages between the UC Berkeley computer systems
and the ARPAnet, one of the first government networks that
preceded the Internet. Sendmail estimates that more than one
million copies of its "freeware" have been installed,
representing more than 75 percent of all Internet servers
dedicated to hosting electronic mail.
Earlier versions of Sendmail included features to attack
spam, but a Sendmail spokesman said that the software's spam
blocking features were difficult to configure for non-
computer experts. "You had to be a computer guru to
configure it," he said. Sendmail said it will begin to offer
a commercial version this summer, for an estimated price of
about $1,000 per server. Sendmail said it expects to reach
about $40 million in annual sales within three years from
server software sales, services, training and consulting
revenues. To date, Sendmail has raised about $1.25 million
in funding from its investors, including Joy and
Bechtolsheim. The company declined to name its other
investors at this time.
Compaq To Offer Free Monitors With PCs
NEW YORK - Compaq Computer plans to offer free monitors and
other accessories with its desktop personal computers for
businesses, in an effort to reduce inventory at its
distributors, the Wall Street Journal said today. Compaq
said it will give away 15-inch monitors, valued at about
$300 each, with its commercial desktop PCs and extend the
memory promotion, which had been limited to high-end
servers, to other units, the paper reported, citing
distributors and others close to Compaq. Compaq's consumer
business isn't suffering an inventory backup and won't be
affected by the new promotions, the paper said.
Motorola-IBM Venture Offers New PowerPC Chip
AUSTIN, Texas - Motorola and IBM today said they introduced
a faster version of its high performance PowerPC 750
microprocessor. The new version of the PowerPC 750 chip,
capable of running at 300 megahertz, will be priced at $495
per chip in quantities of 1,000, Motorola said in a
statement. An IBM spokesman said they will also offer the
chip at $495 per device.
The PowerPC 750 was originally unveiled jointly by the two
companies in August 1997 at speeds up to 266 megahertz, a
standard measure of computer processing speed. PowerPC
microprocessors were jointly developed by Apple Computer,
IBM and Motorola. Apple and vendors that develop for the Mac
OS, or operating system, remain the major consumers of
PowerPC chips.
Apple Computer has used the chips in its G3 line of Power
Macintosh and PowerBook systems. Motorola said embedded
systems design companies also are using PowerPC 750
microprocessors for applications such as networking
infrastructure, industrial and medical imaging and array
processing.
Netscape To Expand Internet Service
NEW YORK - Netscape Communications is planning to expand its
on-line service into a major Internet gateway, the Wall
Street Journal reported today in its electronic edition. The
move to shift its recently launched Netcenter site to a
broader "portal" site -- a combination of content,
communications and community features plus Internet
navigation tools -- could require Netscape to both compete
and cooperate with other Internet companies, the paper said.
It will bring Netscape into more direct competition with
many major Internet players, including Yahoo!, Excite,
America Online and a similar new site that will soon be
launched by Microsoft called Start, the Journal said. But
how Netscape configures such a site might also include a
single partnership or series of partnerships with some of
those same competitors, the paper said.
The Mountain View, Calif., Internet software company is now
in discussions with Yahoo, Excite, AOL, as well as
search-engine companies such as Infoseek and Lycos, about a
wide range of options that include everything from simply
selling them premium placement on the popular site to
large-scale programming deals, the Journal said.
Worldnet Won't Enforce Limits
NEW YORK, March 13 - Worldnet, the Internet service provider
owned by AT&T, says it will not resort to session timers as
a way of reducing problems which occur with heavy network
use. Worldnet spokesman Mike Miller told Reuters the company
does not consider terminating online sessions after a fixed
period of time as a worthwhile method for reducing heavy
traffic during peak hours. Miller says the company sampled
customer's feedback through news groups and decided the
session limits is not a solution for managing heavy usage.
AT&T announced on Tuesday that Worldnet was testing the idea
of imposing time limits, including automatic logoffs, for
the small percentage of subscribers who remain online after
a fixed amount of time, such as three hours or more.
Gore Seeks to Put Earth Image on Internet
Vice President Al Gore proposed Friday the U.S. government
design and operate a satellite to make a live image of the
Earth available on the Internet around the clock. "This new
satellite, called Triana, will allow people around the globe
to gaze at our planet as it travels in its orbit around the
Sun for the first time in history," Gore said. He asked NASA
to launch a new micro satellite offering live images of the
Earth depicting changing cloud patterns, developing
hurricanes and even large fires in oil fields or forests. He
said the image of the full Earth would awaken a new
generation to the environment and educate millions of
children around the globe.
Australia Turns to Internet to Prevent Suicide
Australia launched an Internet site Wednesday to combat the
country's shocking youth suicide rate - one of the world's
worst. Family Services Minister Warwick Smith unveiled what
could be the world's first Internet site to help potential
suicides, their families, friends and health workers. Reach
Out! is found on http://reachout.asn.au . Smith said the
government wanted to turn a technology that sometimes
isolated people into one which reached out and offered help,
provided information and told young people and their
families where to find assistance. An estimated 400
Australians aged between 15 and 24 kill themselves each
year.
AOL's Steve Case Named to the Big Board's Board
In a sign cyberspace has truly arrived in America's business
establishment, America Online Inc.'s Steve Case has been
nominated to the board of the New York Stock Exchange. The
39-year-old CEO and co-founder of America Online joins such
business luminaries as British Airways Chairman Sir Colin
Marshall, Ford Motor Chairman Alex Trotman and the head of
Time Warner, Gerald Levin, who also were nominated to
two-year terms Friday. The Big Board's outside directorship
is made up of a dozen of America's top corporate leaders.
America Online's stock is listed on the New York Stock
Exchange, bucking a trend by many high-tech giants which
remain loyal to the Nasdaq market.
A T T E N T I O N ** A T T E N T I O N ** A T T E N T I O N
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A T T E N T I O N ** A T T E N T I O N ** A T T E N T I O N
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EDUPAGE STR Focus Keeping the users informed
[Image] Edupage
Contents
Congress Eyes Aid For Distance Netscape Plans To Boost RealNetworks Buys Vivo
Learning Students Internet Service Software
Amazon.Com Wants To Send You To Law Software Piracy Malaysian Crackdown On Net
School Pornography
Walking Tightrope Between U.S. DOE Says Cookies Aren't New Tool To Stop Junk Mail
Censorship & Free Speech Bad For You
NSF To End Funding For Internet ISPs Say Internet Demand Compaq Slashes Inventory with
Development Exceeds Technology Free Monitor Offer
Yahoo! And MCI To Compete Against Study Says NCs Are Replacing
AOL PCs In Workplace
Customers Ignored In High-Tech Crossing That Bridge To The Students Are Slow at Using
Decisions Year 2000 Problem High-Speed Networks
Distinction Fuzzy Between Feds Prosecute Teenager For Auto Society Addresses Mobile
CyberWorld & Walk-Around World Computer Crime Gadget Concerns
Principal Financial Opens Modem On The Desk Earns A Pink Video Gamers Use Their Heads
Internet-Only Bank Slip At Sun
CONGRESS EYES AID FOR DISTANCE LEARNING STUDENTS
Congress is beginning work on extending the Higher Education Act,
and is considering easing a provision in the current law that
prohibits colleges from receiving federal aid if they offer more
than 50% of their courses via distance education. The rule, which
initially was introduced to prevent fraud following a 1992 scandal
involving several correspondence schools, now poses problems for
"virtual" universities and other participants in the distance
learning boom. The Clinton Administration has proposed eliminating
the "50% rule" and has asked accrediting agencies to develop
standards for distance learning programs. At the same time, the
Department of Education has urged officials to limit any changes to
include only programs at two-year and four-year colleges that offer
accredited associate, bachelor's or graduate degrees. "The
accrediting agencies are perfectly capable of addressing those
standards. We don't want the department regulating more than is
absolutely necessary," says a senior VP at the American Council on
Education. (Chronicle of Higher Education 13 Mar 98)
NETSCAPE PLANS TO BOOST INTERNET SERVICE
Netscape Communications is planning to expand its Netcenter site
into a major Internet gateway, positioning it in direct competition
with Yahoo!, Excite, America Online and Microsoft. The redesigned
site will include more community features such as discussion
groups, and Netscape is looking at ways to offer free e-mail
service to users. The move signals the consolidation of Web traffic
around a few major "hubs," which serve as the initial log-on point
for Web users. Netscape already ranks No. 2 in visitors, with 23.1
million users in February, second only to Yahoo!. (Wall Street
Journal 13 Mar 98)
REALNETWORKS BUYS VIVO SOFTWARE
RealNetworks, the dominant supplier of online multimedia streaming
software, has acquired Vivo Software for $17 million in a stock
swap deal. The merger will boost RealNetwork's market share to
close to 90%, according to its estimates. The combined companies
will now work on integrating Vivo's VivoActive 2.0 technology into
RealNetwork's software, using Microsoft's open Active Streaming
Format. Microsoft owns a 10% stake in RealNetworks. (Broadcasting &
Cable 2 Mar 98)
AMAZON.COM WANTS TO SEND YOU TO LAW SCHOOL
Online bookseller Amazon.com has an unusual promotion going on, in
an effort to publicize John Grisham's latest thriller, "The Street
Lawyer." The winner of the contest can choose between $25,000 cash
or the first year of law school tuition paid in full. Contestants
must register at the www.amazon.com site, and, as always, should
read the fine print first. Entries must be submitted by March 16.
(Information Week 9 Mar 98)
SOFTWARE PIRACY
A Decima Research survey released by the Canadian Alliance Against
Software Theft found that one in five Canadians pirates software,
although fewer than 1% do so frequently. Only 20% of respondents
said they would report someone for illegally copying software, and
almost half view stealing a chocolate bar as worse than pirating
software. The CAAST estimates piracy costs between $357- and
$500-million annually, but courts have been unwilling to award
damages unless software makers can prove exactly how much they
lost, which is difficult to do since detailed records are rare at
illegal software shops. Changes to the Copyright Act easing that
burden of proof are expected to be proclaimed by the end of April,
providing tougher civil penalties of up to $20,000 for each program
illegally copied. (Toronto Globe & Mail 13 Mar 98)
MALAYSIAN CRACKDOWN ON NET PORNOGRAPHY
Malaysia's consumer affairs minister is calling for strict
monitoring of Internet cafes to prevent young people "from
poisoning their minds with filth" and leading them into crime and
"immoral acts." In some places in the country, cybercafe owners
will be required to give authorities $5,000 deposits that will be
forfeited if the cafes are found to allow pornography on their
screens. (AP 14 Mar 98)
WALKING TIGHTROPE BETWEEN CENSORSHIP AND FREE SPEECH
The Internet has given higher education institutions something new
to worry about. Peter Burke, an attorney in the technology practice
group of the Atlanta & Washington law firm Powell-Goldstein, says:
"Universities are concerned about libel and slander. By operating
e-mail systems, does the university become responsible for what
gets posted there?" Burke says that universities and colleges are
walking the tightrope between censorship and free speech, because
what some may say is offensive, others argue is free speech. "Do we
have people deciding what ideas are good or bad? 'Don't say that,
it might offend somebody? We'd rather you speak good ideas so
everyone is happy?'" (AP 14 Mar 98)
U.S. DOE SAYS COOKIES AREN'T BAD FOR YOU
The U.S. Department of Energy's Computer Incident Advisory
Capability has issued an information bulletin stating that privacy
advocates' fears over the use of cookies -- a popular technique for
tracking Web site visitors - are unfounded. The claims that Web
cookies may be used to gather information on "passwords, credit
card numbers, and a list of the software on your computer" is not
even "close to the truth," according to the bulletin. In fact,
information that is gathered via cookies -- usually a user's
numerical Internet address, browser type and operating system --
can also be recorded in a Web server's log files. "Cookies just
make it easier. [A server] cannot find out your name or e-mail
address, or anything about your computer using cookies," says the
bulletin. (TechWeb 16 Mar 98)
NEW TOOL TO STOP JUNK MAIL
A new version Sendmail, the software used on about 75% of the
message routing computers on the Internet, will offer a number of
features to block "spamming" (the transmission of massive
quantities of unsolicited commercial messages), including the
ability to reject mail from known spam addresses and to force
spammers to reveal their true Internet addresses. Eric Allman, who
wrote the Sendmail program while working as a programmer at the
University of California at Berkeley, is also creating a company
(Sendmail Inc.) to sell software and support services to
businesses, while continuing to develop new features for the free
version of the software. (New York Times 17 Mar 98)
NSF TO STOP FUNDING TRUST FOR INTERNET DEVELOPMENT
The company that contracts with the National Science Foundation to
manage the Internet address registration process will no longer be
putting a portion ($15) of the fees it collects into a trust fund
for network improvements. Network Solutions says it plans instead
to reduce the fee it charges from $50 to $35, because the Internet
Intellectual Infrastructure Fund, which now stands at $45.5
million, has "an appropriate amount of money," according to an NSF
spokeswoman. The trust fund is the center of a lawsuit filed by a
group of companies protesting the $50 fee, which they say is a tax
that NSF lacks the authority to levy. Twenty-three million dollars
of the fund, which is now frozen until the case is adjudicated, was
to have been distributed to colleges and universities as part of
the Administration's Next Generation Internet plan. (Academe Today
17 Mar 98)
ISPs SAY INTERNET DEMAND EXCEEDS TECHNOLOGY
Internet service providers and equipment vendors are warning that
Internet bandwidth demands are growing much faster than the
capacity of Internet backbones. For instance UUNet Technologies
reports that Internet traffic used to double every year, but now
its doubling every three to six months: "We have to radically alter
our backbone very, very regularly," says a UUNet VP. "We and
everybody else are going to have a difficult time keeping up with
bandwidth demand." ISPs complain that new video applications are
straining current technology, and that it's difficult to build up
the backbone without knowing in advance which Internet applications
are going to prove most popular: "We're being asked to build
bandwidth for the future without really knowing what the traffic
will be," says the chairman of Netcom On-Line Communications
Services. And while all agree that eventually usage-based pricing
will prevail, some are suggesting that the industry may also move
to a distance-sensitive pricing scheme, similar to that used by
long-distance telephone providers. (Information Week 16 Mar 98)
COMPAQ SLASHES INVENTORIES WITH FREE MONITOR OFFER
Compaq Computer will offer free 15-inch monitors, valued at about
$300 apiece, with its commercial desktop PCs in an effort to reduce
inventory at its distributor warehouses. Last month, it reduced
prices sharply across its commercial line, cut the price of
monitors in half, and offered to double the installed memory of
some products. The company is hoping to streamline its
manufacturing and distribution processes to make it more
competitive with direct sellers like Gateway 2000 and Dell. The
company's consumer business, which is not suffering from inventory
overload, won't be included in the new promotions. (Wall Street
Journal 16 Mar 98)
YAHOO! AND MCI TO COMPETE AGAINST AOL
Targeting the same kind of subscribers who are members of America
Online, a new dialup online service created jointly by Yahoo! and
MCI will offer Internet access plus premium content and all the
features available from Yahoo!. The standard rate for MCI customers
will be $14.95 a month for unlimited use, with $19.95 being the
rate for non-MCI customers. Industry analyst Patrick Keane says he
can see the new venture "being a pretty formidable competitor" but
that cyberspace is "littered with the bodies of those who have
tried to take on AOL." (USA Today 16 Mar 98)
STUDY SAYS NCs ARE REPLACING PCs IN WORKPLACE
A study by International Data Corp. indicates that about 73% of
companies buying network computers say they are replacing PCs,
rather than terminals. Eighty percent cited the lower cost of NCs
in their decision. About 40% of the respondents indicated they own
more than 100 Ncs, with IBM the most recognized brand name,
followed by Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard. (Investor's
Business Daily 17 Mar 98)
CUSTOMERS IGNORED IN HIGH-TECH DECISIONS
The Deloitte Touche consulting firm says that high-technology
manufacturers suffer from "customer phobia" when it comes to
developing strategies to market and sell their products. A study by
the company concludes that customer satisfaction with manufactured
high-tech goods has steadily declined over the past five years
despite a steady increase in product quantity, with the industry
remaining largely technology-centered along the lines of a "build
it and hope they will come" while keeping customers at a safe
distance. (Ottawa Citizen 17 Mar 98)
CROSSING THAT BRIDGE TO THE YEAR 2000 PROBLEM
With $4.7 billion budgeted this year and next for solving the "Year
2000" problem (when many computers will be unable to distinguish in
which century they are crunching numbers), the current progress
report from federal agencies is: only 35% of computer software
systems critical for agencies to perform their missions have been
checked and fixed, with 3,500 critical systems remaining in need of
attention. In testimony before two subcommittees of Congress, an
official of the General Accounting Office summed up the situation
by saying: "It is unlikely that agencies can complete this vast
amount of work in time." No one knows the full scope of the
problem, because it is not possible to identify which systems are
in fact critical: a seemingly minor system will be critical if
major systems will not run without it. (New York Times 19 Mar 98)
STUDENTS ARE SLOWPOKES ON USING HIGH-SPEED NETWORKS
After several years of pressuring colleges to install high-speed
networks in dormitories, it turns out that students aren't racing
for the chance to log on at lightning speed. The information comes
from an online discussion sponsored by CAUSE, where one participant
complained about "how few students elect to participate in
residence-hall networking." Some attempted to explain the apparent
contradiction, noting that in some cases, students must pay
"subscription" fees to hook up to networks. Others say they hope
the low usage is a "short-term phenomenon" and that once students
get online at these new speeds, they'll be hooked. But as one
participant put it, you want a stronger argument than that when
you're asking your college president to pay for major networking
projects. (Chronicle of Higher Education 20 Mar 98)
DISTINCTION FUZZY BETWEEN CYBER WORLD & WALK-AROUND WORLD
In a move to broaden its product line and offer customers software
to handle both conventional and online commercial transactions,
CyberCash Inc. of Reston, Virginia, whose software allows merchants
to accept payments over the Internet, is buying Oakland,
California-based Icverify Inc., whose software is used to process
credit card transactions. CyberCash's chief executive explains:
"The sharp distinctions between the Internet world we live in and
the walk-around world that Icverify lives in -- those distinctions
are starting to get real fuzzy." (Washington Post 19 Mar 98)
FEDS PROSECUTE TEENAGER FOR COMPUTER CRIME
A Massachusetts teenage computer vandal found guilty of disrupting
phone service to about 600 homes and a small airport's control
tower now faces two years of probation, forfeiture of his computer,
250 hours of community service, and $5,000 in restitution. The
government hopes that bringing charges against the young man will
send a clear warning to others. "To the extent that juvenile
hackers out there think that they somehow have a pass, think that
it's fun and games, think that they're not going to be prosecuted,
they're wrong." (New York Times 19 Mar 98)
AUTO SOCIETY ADDRESSES MOBILE GADGET CONCERNS
The Society of Automotive Engineers, in cooperation with the Big
Three U.S. automakers and a number of federal regulators and
independent researchers, is studying the harmful effects of new
automobile gadgetry, such as Global Positioning System-based
navigation systems, cell phones and dashboard-mounted PCs. "The
bottom line is we're very cognizant of driver overload and driver
distraction," says the director of advanced engineering at GM's
Delphi Automotive Systems. The SAE is drafting voluntary guidelines
for the manufacture and installation of such devices in the hope of
staving off federal regulation. The National Highway Transportation
Safety Administration recently issued a 300-page report on safety
problems related to cell-phone use. (Wall Street Journal 18 Mar 98)
PRINCIPAL FINANCIAL OPENS INTERNET-ONLY BANK
Principal Financial Group, a financial and insurance firm, has
opened an all-electronic Principal Bank. By July 1, customers will
be able access and transfer funds between accounts, file loan
applications, pay bills and view cleared checks, all on the Web.
"The number of people who are using the Web is growing, and this is
a way for them to micromanage their affairs," says the bank's CIO.
Later on this year, a start-up group in Houston plans to open
Compubank, an all-electronic bank. More than 200 electronic-banking
Web sites have opened in the past two years, according to
Seattle-based Online Banking Report, and the number of households
handling at least some banking duties over the Internet rose to 4
million in 1997, up from 2.5 million in '96 and only 250,000 in
'94. (Investor's Business Daily 18 Mar 98)
MODEM ON THE DESK EARNS A PINK SLIP AT SUN
Citing users with dial-up Internet access as the No. 2 biggest
security risk after internal hacking, Sun Microsystems has made it
a firing offense to have a modem on the desk. Many crackers use a
technique called "war dialing" in which their computer tries
hundreds or even thousands of phone numbers in search of an idle
modem. If that PC's owner is not using the machine, the cracker can
effectively "capture" the PC, and gain access to the network it's
connected to. If a senior manager at Sun discovers an infraction,
that employee is "gone the same day," says one of Sun's security
managers. "Any dial-up line is a tremendous risk." (Network Week 18
Mar 98)
VIDEO GAMERS USE THEIR HEADS
Italian PC maker Video Computer is marketing a headset that can be
used in place of the joystick in any video game to perform the
commands that control movement through the 3D space on the screen.
To look left in the game, the player simply needs to slightly
rotate his or her head in that direction. The UR Gear device, which
uses infrared transmitters and receivers to detect movement and
translate it into on-screen motion, was initially designed for
disabled PC users. It will be available in the U.S. in the second
quarter, and will retail for $99. (Business Week 23 Mar 98)
Linux Advocate
Column #9 - for March 20th, 1998
by Scott Dowdle - dowdle@icstech.com -
http://www.icstech.com/~dowdle
LOGIN
Look mom, two columns in a row... wow! Actually, the reason I was
able to produce two in a row is because the folks at the Linux
Weekly News site have authorized me to use their March 12th edition
here. We are still working out the details of future editions but I
hope to be able to reproduce some or all of their weekly
publication here in STR.
The Linux Weekly News site can be found at the following URL:
http://www.eklektix.com/lwn
One REALLY BIG THING to note here, is that there is BIG DIFFERENCE
between the usability of the ASCII and HTML versions of STR with
regards to my representation of the Linux Weekly News publication.
In the HTML version, LWN has an Internet link (URL) embedded into
virtually every paragraph that gives the details on that item. In
the ASCII reproduction, only the raw text has been reproduced,
although slightly reformatted to meet the less complex format of
the ASCII edition of STR. I considered doing considerable work on
the ASCII version by typing all of the URLs from the HTML version
after every ASCII paragraph but after getting three-quarters of the
way done with this edition I observed just how much longer that
makes the ASCII version of the column (an extra line for each
URL)... and given all of the work it would take each and every
week, it just didn't seem worth it.
Ralph was asking for feedback on the HTML version of STR and I must
say that I'm ALL FOR IT. While Adobe makes their Acrobat Reader for
Linux, and there are at least two, free, alternative PDF readers
that I use (gv and xpdf)... I always felt that Acrobat wasn't the
better choice for STR. While there is a PDF browser-plugin and the
PDF format can and was read online, it was certainly much, much
larger and less direct than the new HTML based format. HTML makes
STR so much more friendly and usable, especially where references
are made to Internet URLs. My (red) hat is off to Ralph for making
the decision to switch.
I don't have much to add to this edition of Linux Advocate and I
present the Linux Weekly News below. Enjoy!
The following may be found at it's permanent URL:
http://www.eklektix.com/lwn/980312
The Linux Weekly News Staff may be reached at the following email
address:
lwn@eklektix.com
Linux Weekly News - Published March 12, 1998
Bringing you the latest news from the Linux World. Dedicated to
keeping Linux users up-to-date, with concise news for all
interests.
[Leading items]
Netscape has released their source code license in draft form. You
can read the thing, in mind-numbing legal detail, on the
mozilla.org web site. It looks pretty good; it's their own
creation, but certainly adheres to the spirit of the GPL. Bruce
Perens of Debian fame has pronounced it compliant with the Debian
free software guidelines.
The Netscape folks are looking for feedback, so check out the
license if you're interested in these things and let them know what
you think of it.
According to the GIMP News, version 1.0 of the GIMP will be out
around March 20. The GIMP is one of the truly cool Linux
applications, even if it has been used to create some truly ugly,
graphics-laden Linux sites. It's nice to see that it is finally
ready for prime time.
Here's one user's report on Linus Torvalds talk at the Silicon
Valley Linux Users Group meeting, posted to linux-newbie.
Here's a pretty little cost-comparison between NT and Linux for
setting up an office network for 100 users.
How many Linux users are there? Red Hat has revised their white
paper on the subject (originally published January 11th). In the
paper, they justify their current estimate of between 7-10 million
Linux users, twice the estimate of a year ago.
A truly phenomenal number of software announcements were made in
the last week ... check out the list below.
[Articles]
Linux in the news
First Monday, the "peer reviewed journal on the Internet," has
devoted its entire March issue to Linux and free software. Some of
the stuff we've seen before (Cathedral and Bazaar, Cooking pot
markets), but there's also a lengthy interview with Linus, an
article by Christopher B. Browne on "Linux and decentralized
development", and other good stuff as well. Getting through all
this stuff will take some time, but it's time well spent.
Ralph Nader thinks Dell should sell Linux boxes. Info-Policy Notes
carres an article describing the barriers that exist to easy access
to "alternative" operating systems, and concludes with an open
letter to Michael Dell urging that systems running Linux (and other
OS's) be made available. It would be good for Linux if Dell sold
pre-installed systems, but I think Ralph (and others) do a real
disservice when they overlook the many vendors out there that are
already selling such machines.
Infoworld ran this comment on Nader's proposal. In it, Linus says
he welcomes the suggestion, but even being able to buy a PC without
any operating system install would be an improvement. "For somebody
like me, who really doesn't want to have Windows, I end up paying
for Windows for no good reason. That's like paying taxes for
something you really abhor."
Is Windows forever? asks USA Today. Their answer seems to be "maybe
not," and Linux is listed as one of the threats that Windows faces.
Deja News, the original WWW archiver of netnews traffic, runs
Linux! This article in Internet World talks about how their
operation works.
Comments in ZDNet about the Merced chip. According to one person,
"Linux will be the first widely used IA-64 Unix." He goes on,
however, to predict that the server market will be held by
"Intel-based Linux" for some time yet.
Also on ZDNet: Sun will give you 70% off Solaris if you "upgrade"
from Linux or a number of other competing operating systems. Any
takers?
EETimes talks about a company using Linux for EDA, an acronym they
never define; one assumes it means "Electronic Design Assistance"
or some such. It's a favorable article, citing how much easier
Linux is to manage than the alternatives.
A letter to the editor in Computer Reseller News takes them to task
for an interesting mistake: their "top ten selling DOS and OS/2
programs" list had Red Hat Linux in position #3....
Some people are trying to encourage PC Plus to add Linux coverage.
If you want to help, speak up nicely, either via email or via their
website.
[Security]
Avi Rubin maintains a list of college and gruaduate level courses
in security and cryptography at
http://www.cs.nyu.edu/~rubin/courses.html. He'd appreciate input
and feedback to keep his site correct and up-to-date.
In the ongoing problems with the use of a world-writeable /tmp
directory, Stanislav Shalunov reported that a race condition exists
when executing `perl -e ...'. Theo de Raadt responded that he
submitted a patch for this problem to perl 5.003, which
unfortunately did not make it into perl 5.004_04. He then posted
his patch for 5.003 and Todd Miller's nice patch for 5.004_04.
This latest /tmp problem spawned a lot of discussion about what
should be done with /tmp to prevent such security problems. Here is
a posting from linux-security, which outlines some of the options
discussed, as well as proposing yet another. One interesting
proposal recommended that temporary files be created in an
untouchable area like the proc filesystem, no symlinks allowed. Of
course, this would require kernel-level changes.
The use of mkstemp was also encourage, but now a bug in mkstemp has
been reported. Seems Linux uses a default of 666 when BSD, Solaris,
etc., are (correctly) using 600. This was still found in
glibc2.0.7-pre1 but the problem report caused it to be fixed in
glibc 2.0.7.
The list of /tmp problems goes on and on, ad nauseum. Here is a Red
Hat problem with dhcp, (quickly fixed) another problem with
updatedb and Slackware problems with netconfig and setup.
The combination of bash 2.01 and ncurses 4.1 provides an insecure
environment where a privileged user's console may be taken over.
[Kernel]
Since we're a weekly publication, chances are we'll be behind a rev
or two on the kernel release by the time you read this page.
Up-to-the-second information can always be found at LinuxHQ.
The current development kernel release is 2.1.89. This release was
slow in coming, and changed a lot of things. It seems mostly
stable, but it appears that some of the swap changes made in this
release have been hard on interactive performance. The disk cache
is able to grow a bit more than is wise, leaving user processes out
in the cold. It's being worked on...
But the big news, as of press time, is the pre-2.1.90 patch that
Linus released. See his announcement. There are a couple of
important things in this release: perhaps foremost being that the
2.1.8x networking problems are fixed. Since the announcement came
out, a couple of notes suggest that the fix is not yet complete,
but Dave Miller's "TCP warpath" seems to have achieved results.
(The second pre-90 patch, released while this was being written,
adds some more TCP improvements.) This means that one of the major
roadblocks to 2.2 has been removed, and the serious code freeze
(without "ice breakers" this time) is about to go into place.
Also relevant is a "minor thing" that Linus did: kerneld has been
removed from the 2.1 kernel. Kerneld, for those who don't know, is
a user-mode daemon which automatically loads kernel modules (device
drivers and such) when they are needed. Some distributions (i.e.
Red Hat) depend heavily on kerneld in their stock configurations.
Removing it is going to stir some things up.
The replacement for kerneld is a thing called "kmod", written by
Kirk Petersen and Cyrus Durgin. See a recent announcement and the
documentation file from the kernel tree. Kmod has been incorporated
into the pre-90 patch, and is thus available without further
effort. Kmod does seem like a simpler solution to the problem; it
remains to be seen whether it can truly replace kerneld or not.
Gregory Travis, who posted some context switching benchmarks
comparing Linux and NT a while back has pursued the subject
further. It seems that Linux does better in some situations, but
tends to degrade much more than NT when there is a large number of
runnable processes. He ran more benchmarks, including a set with a
slightly modified scheduler, and came up with these results and a
detailed analysis as well. There are a couple of sources of
slowness, including (1) uses a linear search on the queue of
runnable processes when scheduling, and (2) some of the actually
priority-setting code can be slow. Linus posted some remarks on the
subject, describing the reasoning behind the scheduler design
decisions.
If you have an application using the old "callout" tty devices,
/dev/cua*, it's time to begin thinking about changing it. A
proposed change for 2.2 will put in a kernel warning when a program
uses one of these devices, and they may go away altogether in 2.3.
The thought is that device locking should be handled in user mode,
and that the kernel should be out of that business.
Anders Hammarquist has fixed the problems that prevented the new
kernel NFS implementation from being compiled on glibc2 systems. A
version has been made available on the Debian FTP server; a cleaner
version of the fix should be made more widely available shortly.
Many networking (and other) fixes are being produced by Bill Hawes.
Bill is perhaps one of the great unsung heroes of the 2.1 kernel.
If you see him at Linux Expo, shake his hand and buy him a beer...
Alan Cox has put out the 2.0.34 pre3 patch as he heads towards a
new release of the old stable kernel series. This patch does not
yet have the fix for the mysterious lockup problem that affects
some machines with a lot of network activity - that problem has not
yet been nailed down. There are also some problems with actually
applying and compiling this patch; a bit of last minute flakiness
seems to have slipped in. A fixed version should come out in a few
days.
Meanwhile, for those who are having difficulties with the 2.0.3*
lockup problems, David Ferry has put together a patch against
2.0.29 to create an ultra-stable kernel. His announcement is here.
[DISTRIBUTIONS]
Caldera
For those running into initial problems with 1.2 installs, check
out the 1.2 FAQ.
If you have problems with your CDROM drive being detected during
installation, remember that Caldera posts updated boot disk images
on their ftp site. Check to see if your CDROM is included in one of
the new ones.
Debian
Bruce Perens put out a comment on Debian's Trademark policy. No
business can use the word Debian in their business or domain name.
To save money and time, contact them first and ask about any
planned use.
Barring exceptional circumstances, hamm (Debian 2.0) will freeze on
March 16th. The upcoming freeze has stirred up a large amount of
posts about how to find and handle orphaned packages or packages
with critical bugs, whether the non-386 architectures will make the
release date and more ...
Testers Are Needed for the Hamm Freeze! Here's your chance to
contribute to the effort, if you haven't yet.
And to upgrade your bo system to hamm? The latest offer is
dpkg-get, a deity method. The claim is that it obsoletes dpkg-ftp,
dpkg-http, pkg-order, autoup.sh and possibly others.
Christian Schwarz has created a Debian Resources page.
Red Hat
Red Hat will be at a couple of user group meetings over the next
couple of weeks. Check out the User Group Calendar below.
Lots of people are poking Red Hat to find out if Red Hat 5.1 is on
the way. No official answer, but it is definitely in the works, as
can be deduced from several hints: the presence of Red Hat in the
newsgroups has gone down, workers that will comment say it is
certainly being thought on, and last, it was pointed out that Red
Hat upgrades typically come out just before a major Linux event or
expo ...
Problems with the upgrade or installation of Red Hat 5.0 are still
extremely common. No universal solution has been reported, but
check out the errata pages on the Red Hat website first.
S.u.S.E.
[Ports]
Tres Hofmeister reported to us that Linus Torvalds was presented
with a Palm Pilot by folks from 3-Com, in recognition of the fact
that Linux is being ported to the Pilot by the
Linux/Microcontroller Project. If you're interested, he also
forwarded a copy of a recent digest from pilot-unix, which
describes the purpose of the pilot port of Linux.
The sparc port of hamm (to be Debian 2.0) is close, but unlikely to
make the freeze date (March 16th). They will be working to "catch
up" to the Intel release during the Freeze, so they could still
make the release date, or come out soon after.
[Software Development]
Java
Sun wants to poll java developers for information. If you are
interested, sign up , give them your number and a time to call and
you may get a chance to talk with someone directly.
Christopher Seawood posted a list of tweaks he used in order to get
Java Studio 1.0 & Java Web Server 1.1 working under linux. He was
not able to get Java Workshop 2.0 going, but Joachim Bergmeyer was,
using a patch from S.u.S.E.
He also posted various unofficial jdk 1.1.5 builds built using a
glibc motif 1.2.4 and RedHat's glibc motif 2.1.
Embedded Systems
In response to several requests, William R. Kerr posted a detailed
discussion of the system-level issues in implementing cPCI Hot Swap
in an operating system to linux-embedded.
Real-time
The real-time Linux folks want to put out a release concurrent with
the upcoming 2.2 stable kernel release. Here's a quick note
describing what they hope to have in place.
[Articles]
Stefan Waldherr has updated his Star Office page to include the
patch from StarDivision that hopefully fixes the problem with
random lockups.
From one of your editors' personal experience: Red Hat
distributions (and probably others) use Wietse Venema's version of
portmap which can use the TCP wrapper control files
(/etc/hosts.allow and /etc/hosts.deny) to decide who can map ports
and who can't. However, "to avoid deadlocks" portmap doesn't
reverse map IP addresses to host names before checking. Thus, all
entries for portmap must use IP addresses, and not host (or domain)
names. Forget this, and you'll find access being denied when it
seems it should be allowed...
[Announcements]
Software
Package Version Description
a2ps 4.9.10 Any to PostScript filter
ACUA 2.07 Access control and user administration
AutoRPM 1.2 automatically keeps RPMS up-to-date
C50SIM n/a simulator for TMS320C50 dsp
ccmalloc 0.2.1 memory profiler and malloc debugger
chpp 0.2 a general purpose preprocessor
cvs2html n/a converts cvs log information to html
DAS driver n/a driver for DAS 1600/1400/1200 and compatibles
DosLinux 54 small linux system for dos
dds 1.0.0alpha Distributed Dependancy Scheduler Web usability
Follow 2.02 analysis tool (COMMERCIAL)
fortune 0.1 simple, small, fast fortune program
Grail 0.4 Python web browser
Help 0.9beta easy development of on-line help for Motif
applications
ToolKit
for Motif
IPChains 1.3 kernel firewall replacement C++ application
ivtools 0.6.2 frameworks for spatial data
Ktk 0.1 Qt look'n'feel for Tcl/Tk applications
MaMa 1.0a1 "Make Master" graphical front end for 'make' program.
monctrl 0.1 Philips monitor software control panel
MPSQL 1.5.3 a SQL GUI client for PostgresSQL
ncurses 4.2 terminal control library
netcdf 3.4 System-independent scientific data format
newsfetch 1.11 pull news via NNTP to a mailbox
nosql 0.9 Unix RDBMS
nv-dc1000 0.1beta Transfer images from the NV-DC1000 digital camera
Open Sound n/a minimal C++ wrappers around OSS-lib
System C++
Wrappers
Pathetic n/a Yet Another Half-working Word Processor
Write
pavuk 0.8 WWW mirroring tool with or without GUI interface
pdict 1.0 phonetic word lookup program
PostgreSQL 6.3 SQL RDBMS
Procinfo 13 system information utility
rhupgrade 2.0 upgrade your RedHat system by hand
RITW n/a Very simple network monitoring tool
Screader 1.5 A screen reader for Linux
scwm 0.6 Scheme Configurable Window Manager
siggen 2 signal generator progs for soundcards
sendfile 2.1 async file transfer service
Socket 1.5 create networking-oriented programs
Script
Sound 0.02 record samples or tracks from line or cdrom input
Recorder
Spak 0.6b Arbitrary Packet Generator/Sender
Sprocket 0.4.0 graphical ftp-client
Tag-types 0.0.6 Utilities for manipulating tagged files
taper 6.8.4 Backup software for tape drives, floppies, ZIP drives
urlmon 3.0b URL monitoring software
utok 1.5 Unique TOKens
Uwatch 0.1a Monitor Logins/Logouts
WipeOut 1.2 integrated software development environment for C++
and Java projects (COMMERCIAL)
WWWOFFLE 2.1 World Wide Web Offline Explorer
X-CD-Roast .96d-beta3 a CD-Writer-Package based on cdrecord and
mkisofs
XEmacs 20.4 an internationalized text editor
Xenmenu 0.8b ASCII Menu Generator
XFracky 2.5 a multithreaded Tcl/Tk based application for rendering
fractals
XFree86 3.3.2 The X window system
XNew 0.4a Account Request/Creation Tool
xpdf 0.7a a PDF viewer for X
Yalsim 2 Yet Another Logic/Timing Simulator (COMMERCIAL $1)
ypserv 1.3.0 NIS v2 server
ypbind-mt 1.0 multithreaded NIS binding daemon
Projects
Albrecht Kleine is looking for a beta tester for the new release of
the TYA just-in-time-compiler.
The Mexico Linux User Group is sponsoring a Linux-IRC Project.
Their goal is to have multiple channels, i.e., #kernel, #admin,
#net, #gnu, and more, plus to be able to use the channel for
teaching classes, conferences and user groups meetings. Perhaps
they can join with linpeople, an older IRC network that is not
widely known.
The X11 Games page has been recently updated and the maintainer is
looking for new links and games.
A decision has been made to migrate SMGL-Tools and the Linux
Documentation Project to a new document type definition, DocBook.
The FreeDOS project is not new, but here's a reminder, if you're
interested in DOS, you'll be interested in this project.
Resources
The March issue of the Linux Gazette has been released.
Linux Central's has Redhat's 5.0 distribution for $1.95.
The book, "Samba: Integrating UNIX and Windows", has been published
by Specialized Systems Consultants Inc. (SSC).
Events
The O'Reilly-sponsored Perl Conference has issued its Call For
Papers. The conference will be held August 17th through the 20th in
the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, California.
Web sites
Web Watcher now has its own domain, thanks to the folks at VA
Research!
The Linux Questionnaire gives people a place to report their
experience with Linux and see the survey results, updated hourly.
Here's a page that offers help with Linux setup on Digital VP-567 &
VP-500 series.
User group Calendar
Saturday, March 21st
Skaane Sjaelland Linux Users Group (SSLUG) will hold a meeting in
Lund, Sweden at the University of Lund.
Other User Group News
Here is the announcement for the first Czech Linux Users' Group
Meeting in Cikhaj. To become a member, check out this posting. (In
Czech)
The UNIX/Linux Special Interest Group of the Dayton Microcomputer
Association meets on the first thursday of every month.
The GNU Generation Computer Group of Corpus Christi Texas (GGCG)
now has a mailing list.
[Links]
Linux links of the week
Anybody who doesn't have "ssh" on their systems should wander over
to the ssh home page and learn about it. Ssh is the realization of
some of the promise of cryptography, providing secure
communications (all traffic is encrypted), protection against
password sniffer attacks (one of the biggest sources of breakins),
and protection against host spoofing attacks. It's easy to install
and use, and you'll never use rlogin again.
Red Hat users can get an RPM of ssh from the Replay crypto archive.
This site is conveniently hosted outside of the U.S., so the
nonsensical American crypto laws are not a problem. They have a lot
of good stuff beyond ssh as well.
If you're one of the three readers of this page who don't know
about Slashdot.org, go check it out now. It's the best source of
up-to-the-second news on the net.
[Feedback]
Feedback and Corrections
Many people posted that they had registered on the Linux Counter
quite a while ago and been given an id number greater than 60,000
quite a while ago. No word yet from the maintainers of the site as
to why their summary report still showed less than 60,000 ...
This page is produced by Eklektix, Inc.
LOGOUT
Well, what do you think of the Linux Weekly News? As always, feel
free to email me with comments or suggestions about this column.
Again, I'm going to attempt to make it a weekly column now,
especially if I do get permission to reproduce LWN every week.
TYL, Scott Dowdle - dowdle@icstech.com
[Image]
STR Editor's Mail Call "...a place for the readers to be heard"
Editor's MailBag
Messages * NOT EDITED * for content
From: Stan Sieger [sieger@hotmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, March 07, 1998 3:11 PM
To: rmariano@streport.com
Subject: Reply to your editorial
Now, let me get this straight: one week you write about a guy
caught with kiddie porn on his computer but he's innocent of any
crime, even though the evidence is staring you in the face. This
week another guy is *guilty* of the *crime* of using a cell phone
while driving, even though there is *no* evidence. ("Now, I don't
know if it was in use at the time of the collision.") I'm mystified
by the logic that permits you to issue both these conclusions.
I am 100% with you in support of a law forbidding use of cellphones
in moving vehicles. In fact, I'm writing to my reps asking that all
cellphones be manufactured, and/or retrofitted, with a device that
will make them explode if used in such. (It should be easy to
develop a circuit that detects the unique RF pulse put out by spark
plugs and use this to arm the self-destruct mechanism).
Did the news of the terrible traffic accident on an LA freeway this
week make it down to Florida? Did you know that the first 911
reports were made by other motorists using cellphones? How many of
the injured might be dead now if medical treatment had been delayed
even a few minutes if cellphones had not been available?
"...ticketable offense with points assessed for operating a motor
vehicle while using/talking on a cellphone." Nice idea but how
would you *prove* use by those with speakerphones. "But officer, I
was just talking to myself/singing along with the radio".
_________________
Stan!!
Fancy meeting you here! Short sweet and to the point....
* I am elated that you agree with me about the severe
dangers cellphone usage presents while operating a
vehicle.
* There you go again! Going from the ridiculous to the
sublime <g> in comparing an intrusional offense
that's related to the Bill of Rights under the
Privacy Provisions besides, it cannot be proven one
way or another if the alleged perp deliberately
visited said site to obtain porn or was duped into
visiting such a site. An article in this week's
issue illustrates how just such an occurrence might
take place. An individual's deliberate actions are
directly controllable by that individual as in the
case of using a cellphone while operating a vehicle.
* As for the accident being reported... have you any
indication the person calling the accident in was
standing still, parked or operating the car while
talking on the cellphone? If the person was talking
on the cellphone while underway then all that can be
said is two wrongs.... Do not make a right.
* Yes Stan... it most certainly should be a ticketable
offense. Cellphone yappers are as hazardous as any
drunk driver or DUI driver. You see, the cellphone
yapper is not paying any attention to their driving
thus they are seriously impaired. Both mentally and
physically.
If it can be proven that, at the time of the offense, the operator
of the motor vehicle was using a "hands free" cellphone at all
times... then of course, there should be no ticket. Have you seen
any Cellphones yet that dial by voice command??
Thanks for reading and do write again......
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[Image]
Kids Computing Corner
Frank Sereno, Editor
fsereno@streport.com
The Kids' Computing Corner
Computer news and software reviews
from a parent's point of view
Familial responsibilities prevented me from completing my column
for this week. I had the opportunity to take my older sons to a
minor league hockey game. We watched the Chicago Wolves play the
Utah Grizzlies at the Rosemont Horizon. What a blast! The hockey
was played at a high skill level and there was always something
going on to interest the fans. If you get the chance, check out
minor league hockey.
In roller hockey news, the league changed the kids' schedule and
they played a doubleheader for the season ending tournament on
Wednesday. They had finished the regular season with a 6-2 record
good for second place. By winning both games on Wednesday, they won
the championship tournament. The games were very close, but Lissy's
Polaris pulled out 3-1 and 4-3 victories. My kids really enjoyed
playing the game and they have learned quite a bit about how hockey
is played. The coach did a great job of involving all the kids and
giving everyone opportunities to play. Jeremy and Tim are looking
forward to the fall season!
On a final personal note, today (March 20) marks the sixteenth
anniversary of the marriage of Frank Sereno and Denise Leonard. It
is an understatement to say that I have been blessed by the
partnership of this loving, sweet and beautiful person. Denise,
you're the greatest!
[Image]
Jason's Jive
[Image]
Jason Sereno, STR Staff
jsereno@streport.com
Interstate '76
Nitro Pack
Windows 95 CD-ROM
Suggested Retail: $39.99
For ages 13+
Activision, Inc.
16101 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 300
Los Angeles, California 90025
tel 310.473.9200
fax 310.479.4005
http://www.activsion.com
[Image] From the moment I started using the Interstate '76
Arsenal, I could tell that I was in for one
funkadelic ride. It is separated into two equally far out
sections. The first is the original drive n' shoot
blockbuster modified with some pretty groovy 3D-enhanced
graphics. They decided to name this new version the Gold
Edition. The second part is the Nitro pack. This contains
twenty add on missions with all new voice overs and some
high-octane multiplayer levels. This arsenal is a little
"Mod Squad," a little "Shaft," and a whole lot of attitude.
We will go over the Interstate '76 Gold Edition first.
Instantly, you are wrapped up in the game's atmosphere. You
first see a funk-filled theme worthy of any 70's crime
drama. The use of the cameras and action sequences are
amazing. Meanwhile the swinging soundtrack supplies you with
an original, yet somehow familiar remembrance of the 70's
funk. Or at least that is what I am told. I wasn't really
alive then.
From there on, you meet many unique characters [Image]
bent on obtaining all of the nations fuel in this
alternate 70's world. A wide variety of missions bring them
along as well as well as some very detailed missions.
Everything from escorts, multiple car races, and full out
holocausts are in the game. The cars and weapons are also
the same from the original, but they are all graphically
enhanced to improve the vigilante gameplay. Sky and ground
textures have also been added and modified to help immerse
yourself into this whacked out 70's world. The blend of 70's
slang alone brings you back a couple of decades!
The cars themselves are also very "neato." Each one has its
own flavor and one of a kind properties. Some cars handle
better, accelerate faster, or top out at higher speeds. You
are allowed to edit your car's configuration by removing or
replacing its armor on any side. You can also change your
cars' weapons to suit the individual levels' requirements.
Sometimes you are not allowed to use your weapons in an
episode. So by having them all you do is add weight to your
vehicle and consequently slow it down.
What the Nitro Pack adds is a whole bunch more attitude. It
comes with twenty single-player levels, which actually take
place before the original story line begins. You can play as
Jade, an expert female racer turned vigilante, her mentor
Taurus, or the half-witted mechanic Skeeter. There are also
thirty multiplayer levels available! Up to eight players can
capture the flag, race, or battle it out in a very diverse
amount of settings.
[Image] The Nitro Pack adds nine new cars and six new guns
as well. It also lets you choose a different
automobile for each scenario. Cars, jeeps, ambulances,
hearses, and even school buses may be used. It is definitely
the next best thing possible to a sequel of the great game.
A couple of things I would like to see in another sequel
however would be a built in car and/or map editor. There are
a lot of cars and maps in both parts of the Arsenal, but we
all know how fun it is to make your own creations. (Note to
software developers: Something simple, for once, would also
be greatly appreciated.)
The Interstate '76 Arsenal is definitely a great package.
The original game itself was pretty spectacular. Now with
the graphical enhancements, especially 3D wise, it's a real
deal at $39.99. This Nitro pack is very groovy and a nice
accessory to the bundle as well. I found the Interstate '76
Arsenal very entertaining and it proved to be a very
funkadelic ride indeed!
Jason's Tips
When altering your car's ammunition, there are basically two
ways to go. Most cars in the game have at least one top, one
forward, and one backward slot for guns. A turret is a great
thing to use on top. It moves 360 degrees and can fire up or
down. However, another possible root is to use the top slot
as another forward shooting device. Then you can "link" the
top and how ever many guns are used for shooting forward
together. This means that when you shoot forward, all of the
guns that are aimed forward will shoot at the desired
target. You will find it creates a lot more damage than a
single gun would.
Another thing that is fun to do is to utilize your dropping
weapons. These include fire droppers, land mines, and box
droppers along with others. The fire droppers are great to
use for what I am about to mention because they can cause
damage more than one time. You see, what you can do is
create a sort of lake of fire to ambush your opponents with
a single available roadway crossing it. The computer won't
think much of it at first. It will simply aim for you and
pick the fastest route. This means that it may in fact
travel over large amounts of fire droppings to get to you.
After a while it will no doubt blow up because of the amount
of damage it takes. You have to be careful yourself not to
fall into your own traps sometimes. The land mines and box
droppers are especially hard to see.
Cheat Codes
(Hold down Ctrl and Shift for all)
1.Type "Getdown" while playing. This will automatically make
every one of your opponents go crazy on you (in TRIP only )
After you die you will automatically advance to the next
level. Sweet, no?
2.Type "wiggleburger". It makes the screen bounce or
"wiggle" a lot. Pretty useless though.
3.Type "thirdnostril". It increases your radar capabilities
drastically.
Program Requirements
100% IBM PC-compatible Pentium 90 MHz computer (Pentium 133
or higher for 3-D acceleration), U.S. version Microsoft
Windows 95 operating system, 16 MB RAM, 135 MB uncompressed
hard disk space for full install, 80 MB for minimum install,
VESA local bus (VLB) or PCI video card with 2 MB RAM, 16-Bit
High Color, Quad speed CD-ROM, 100% Sound Blaster-compatible
mouse and driver, joystick or gamepad, modem play supported,
null modem play supported, Internet play supported.
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STReport International Online Magazine
STReport ConfidentialT
News, Tips, Rumors, Exposis, Predictions
SuperSnoop's associate, BaldKitty, submits....
Report for 3/12/98. . .
THE PRESS HAS PART OF THE STORY...
Although there is much speculation in the press about the
motives of Hasbro in going after Atari, all of them (thus
far) are not accurate. Much has been made over the retro
market. And, in all honesty, the market does look good.
However, to simply expect Hasbro to only remake the
retro-atari titles for the likes of the PSX and PC is quite
laughable.
There is a console out there. There are 2 consoles out
there. I'm quite sure you all have 1 in particular, in mind.
Well, fear not, Atarians...Why not ask VM Labs about Hasbro.
I think the 2 companies know each other well. Secondly,
there is a in house job that also looks very impressive.
Spec sheet includes: 8 MB Ram 8 MB Rom 1.0 GB HD 4 MB Video
RAM 3 D Hardware Motorola CPU Programming to make the PSX
look more like a Ph.D. The system easily outpaces the PSX
and the N64. Internal documents don't show the same for X
(meaning, X is more powerful than the in house cat.)
Which of these will see the light? If the mags are right,
neither...if I am right, 1 of them most definitely will. I'm
willing to bet on which one, as well.
ATARI IS LITTLE MORE THAN PAPER.
"Atari" as a company no longer exists. Any products you see
with the Atari name will only be of the Atari name.
$5 MILLION COST SEEN AS "A STEAL"
Company officials with Hasbro still find it hard to believe
they got Atari lock, stock and barrel for the price they
did. SEC Investigators do as well. Who's to blame...well,
we'll just have to see on the ultimate scapegoat, won't we.
I am the baldkitty...
END TRANSMISSION
THE BALDKITTY REPORT #2
ACCURACY OF THE BALDKITTY
The bald gato does not know all, but does know much. Even
now, as most are still in shock about the recent events,
more is on the horizon. The furless one always intends to
make sure Atari faithful know first. And know accurately.
PAPER TIGERS (HEHEHEHE)
Everyone knows that Game.Com is a tremendous failure. Expect
it to make a graceful and quick disappearance thanks to KB
Toys and other such discounters. Hasbro will be releasing a
portable color system, mainly to compete with GameBoy. Which
would you rather have? Backwards compatibility with the
Lynx, or Game.COM? As of right now...the Lynx looks to be
the frontrunner.
WEASELS AND SKUNKS AND LAWYERS
The bald one's sources tell him that at one point in time,
Hasbro was willing to fork over substantially more cash for
Atari. However, the dire situation of JTS demanded an
immediate influx of new operating capital. Just how much is
substantial? Try 10-25 times more than the final closing
price.
BS, AND I AINT DISHIN' IT
The sale of Atari will not affect in any way the release of
Battle Sphere.
VM LABS...OH, HOW ARE YOU
While the bald one cuddles up with a blanket by the fire,
word has it that VM LABS and Hasbro also very "cuddly." Case
in point...Hasbro Interactive is in possession of a software
development kit. Case in point 2...Hasbro is also a
potential licensee for hardware.
MICROSOFT SPURNED?
The original plans for any Hasbro home system included a
possible Windows CE interface. Thankfully, only Sega will be
tapping Microsloth for its Katana system. Word also has it
that Sega is ready to repeat the mistake of the
Saturn...namely, sending the Katana out the door with an
unbelievable list price, and unfinished development tools.
Not to mention a buggy OS.
PROJECT X...GET YOUR PROJECT X
The hairless mess understands that Hasbro did approach Atari
with designs on snagging the Jaguar II. However, it was
decided that backward compatibility was less than desirable.
MORE TO COME, ONLY FROM THE BALDKITTY.
BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY AND MONKEYSHINES
Project X is not, never has been, never will be ackwards
compatible with the Jaguar. Is Project X being licensed by
Hasbro? Baldkitty's sources say yes. Will the Hasbro X
system be labeled Hasbro? Baldkitty's sources say no. Will
it be labeled Atari? Baldkitty knows the answer.
ATARI SANS JTS
What will be the main effect for end users? #1, Atari is
expected to return to some form of name recognition.
ATARISOFT REDUX?
There has been much speculation that the only reason for the
acquisition of Atari is to release classic Atari games for
next gen systems, much like Atari released its licensed
games for the Apple ][, the C64, TI 99/4A and PC during the
early 1980s...
The speculation is incorrect.
However, don't be suprised to see updates for classic games.
SEC INVESTIGATION IS UNDERWAY
Baldkitty's sources indicate a three pronged investigation
featuring representatives of Treasury (IRS), Justice (FBI
and Attorney Generals office), and, of course, the SEC.
Wanna guess at the outcome?
At this point, its too early to say. However, don't be
suprised if plea bargains aren't made in the near future.
Could one of the Tramiels be in hot water? Could be, says
the Kitty.
(Oh my.... Shades of the "Don Mills Affair!" ..editor rfm)
[Image]
Classics & Gaming Section
Editor Dana P. Jacobson
dpj@streport.com
From the Atari Editor's Desk "Saying it like it is!"
In this editor's eyes, Hasbro Interactive's purchase of
Atari from JTS is really not that big of a deal. Sure, many
if the classic games that many of us grew up playing on the
2600, like Centipede and Missile Command, will likely see
"new life" on PCs and gaming consoles. However, to me, the
Atari name means more than just classic games. For me to get
excited, and for this sale to really have some significance,
Hasbro would have to include the Atari line of computers in
its plans. Folks, this just isn't going to happen.
Why? First of all, there is no significant Atari software
development happening. No, I don't mean there's no
development - I'm talking major stuff, and lots of it.
Secondly, and again I don't mean to belittle what's out
there, there's no dealer network. And lastly, the hardware
and operating systems are outdated. For Hasbro to do
anything for the omputer side, they would essentially have
to develop these networks from the ground level. For a niche
market, it isn't worth their effort. Do I wish it were? You
bet!
But I am happy to see that the Atari name will live on in
some manner. I've been using Atari products for 20 years or
so now. I'll be excited to see "modern" versions of those
classic Atari games. I think Hasbro got a steal when they
bought Atari for $5 million! They'll probably get their
investment back, and much more (maybe tenfold) in a year or
so. Not a bad deal...
This week's issue includes more news regarding the Atari
sale, including reported plans by Hasbro. Also included are
a number of articles and commentaries. One in particular, by
longtime friend and
Atari ex-employee Don Thomas, makes the reader really
contemplate JTS' role with Atari from its merger with Atari
to the final sale to Hasbro Interactive. We hope you enjoy
the read.
Until next time...
Hasbro Interactive Acquires Legendary Atari
BEVERLY, MASS. (March 16) BUSINESS WIRE - March 16, 1998 -
Leading interactive games publisher Hasbro Interactive,
Inc., a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc., announced [today] that a
subsidiary has acquired copyrights, trademarks, patents and
other intellectual property assets of the Atari Division of
JTS Corporation, giving Hasbro Interactive rights to some of
the greatest video games and play patterns ever created for
multimedia entertainment. The Atari properties and assets
include over 75 game properties including the legendary
titles Centipede, Missile Command, Pong, Breakout and
Tempest. Hasbro Interactive plans to release its first Atari
title this fall with Centipede for both the PC and Sony
Playstation game console.
"We are thrilled that the classic Atari game properties will
now be a part of the Hasbro family," said Tom Dusenberry,
President of Hasbro Interactive. "These ground-breaking
games helped pioneer the video game industry," added
Dusenberry. "We intend to bring these classics back to life
by updating them with the latest technology and interactive
game design, while preserving their heart and spirit."
Hasbro Interactive has proven its ability to bring beloved
arcade classics successfully back to life with its
blockbuster launch of Frogger in 1997 for both the PC and
Playstation game console. Frogger, based on the 1980s' mega
video game originally developed by KONAMI Co., Ltd., was a
huge hit over the holidays and continues to hop its way up
the best-selling interactive game charts.
"We plan to implement the same aggressive strategy we used
with Frogger, in bringing back the Atari classics," added
Dusenberry. "We will develop games that appeal to the
players who loved the titles as kids, while attracting a
whole new generation by bringing the games up to today's
highest standards. Of course, like all Hasbro Interactive
titles, they will be backed by major marketing and
merchandising programs."
With the acquisition of Atari's deep library of game
properties, Hasbro Interactive seeks to strengthen its
position in the action game category. Hasbro Interactive
intends to develop various titles for all viable and
available gaming platforms - PC CD-ROM, the Sony Playstation
and Nintendo 64 game consoles, among others.
Background on Some Atari Favorites:
The largest insect invasion in history was recorded when
Centipede hit the arcades in the 1980s. "Getting the bugs
out" was the mission in this perennial favorite. The player
launched rapid-fire attacks against persistent centipedes,
sticky spiders, mushroom-dropping fleas and poisonous
scorpions in order to re-claim the sacred mushroom patch.
No guts, no glory was the motto in the Atari classic,
Missile Command. Players needed quick thinking and rapid
fire to combat the battalions of bombers, satellites,
missiles and smart bombs in this fast-action shooter. Blow
them away first -- otherwise you're vapor!
The two games that gave birth to the video game industry
were pioneers Pong and Breakout. No fancy graphics were
needed in these addictive thrillers - just a good dose of
quick reaction and hand-eye coordination would do the job.
Pong, the game of "virtual" handball, mesmerized gamers for
hours as they battled their friends and foes match after
match. Breaking through walls of bricks by ricocheting balls
off of a video paddle was the simple, but very addictive
premise behind Breakout. The desire to get a better score,
kept the early gamers coming back for more.
Hasbro Interactive, Inc. is a leading all-family interactive
games publisher, formed in 1995 to bring to life on he
computer the deep library of toy and board games of parent
company, Hasbro, Inc. Hasbro Interactive has expanded its
charter to include original and licensed games for the PC,
the Sony PlayStation(tm) and for multi- player gaming over
the Internet. Headquartered in Beverly, Massachusetts,
Hasbro Interactive has offices in the U.K., France, Germany,
Japan and Canada. For more information on Hasbro Interactive
titles, please visit www.hasbro-interactive.com .
PECKING AT THE SCRAPS
by Donald A. Thomas, Jr. Copyright 1998 (3/15/98)
As of 5:00 PM, Friday, March 13, 1998, JTS Corporation has
released a formal announcement regarding the recent sale of
Atari properties to a subsidiary of Hasbro Interactive.
Details of this transaction are accessible throughout the
Internet and a compilation of these materials can be found
under "Hot News" at http://www.L4software.com/icwhen . The
JTS announcement comes hot-on-the-heals of the discovery of
an 8-K posted on the web site of the Security Exchange
Commission (SEC).
The news is exciting. Hasbro, a company focused on quality
home entertainment, has acquired the rights to Atari's
home-based properties, including patents and intellectual
rights. Updates and reissues of classic video games is
proving to be a great way to inspire new profits, and it's
refreshing to us classics aficionados to see companies
realize that fact. Hasbro Interactive's release of Frogger
turned out to be fruitful, and they will be anxious to
repeat that kind of success by applying the same formula to
other titles.
There are a few other reasons that Hasbro may have happened
upon the unusual deal that JTS placed at their doorstep. VM
Labs, a small company that might often remind people of 3DO
in their early days, is developing software for a new
machine which is getting a veil placed over it at this very
moment. One of VM Labs attributes is the well-known Jeff
Minter who did spectacular remakes of Tempest and Defender
on the Atari Jaguar. VM Labs has already demonstrated his
latest work of their "Project-X". Some sources indicate that
VM Labs was very interested in other titles Atari had
collecting dust in their unguarded vault. VM Labs' bids to
JTS Corporation fell short of Hasbro's ability to step
forward with cash - something that the fledgling JTS needs
very badly. Interestingly, it looks like VM Labs may have
gotten their hands on those titles after all. Hasbro
Interactive, many claim, is a "favored-nation" third-party
developer for Project-X. It is very likely that these
companies actually do not know too much more about
themselves than we what we find out. There exists a belief
that these companies survive based on infinite wisdom. That
everything that happens is part of some big conspiracy.
Companies like for us to believe that day-to-day decisions
are based on business models that they established for
themselves. It is critical that investors are convinced that
management makes decisions based on an armored plan of
action. The simple truth is that gaming and technology
companies are filled with people who are fresh out of school
and enjoyed their computer science courses a lot more than
their history and business management courses. Frequently,
the people at the top are those who were at the right place
at the right time. Many of them barely spend a full hour
each week ever playing a video game. For instance, Leonard
Tramiel was the only one of the primary four at Atari (Jack,
Sam, Leonard and Garry) that really knew how to use a
computer, much less than program one. Jack finally had a
non-Atari PC hooked up in his office during the final months
so he could track his investments on the Internet. Sam has
been "on-line" for a few years now, but I don't think Garry
really uses a computer to this day. I don't think I ever saw
any of them play a video game. If I did, it was definitely
Leonard.
I don't know what your thoughts are about the Hasbro
acquisition of Atari, but I would like to share some
questions that come to my mind. I ask these in a rhetorical
spirit because I do not know if they can be answered. The
mainstream press was not much interested in Atari when it
was worth $50,000,000. I doubt they'll take much notice of
it with it being worth only $5,000,000. Until the press
starts asking the questions, I doubt there will be much
motivation to answer them.
JTS acquired Atari and a number of employees. What has
happened to those employees, specifically those assigned to
the "Atari Division"?
Other than liquidating the material assets and inventory of
Atari in a year and a half, what steps did JTS take to
pro-actively turn that part of the company around?
ATC investors purchased stock in a company that was in the
video game business and being led to believe that their
investments would remain in that business. What efforts were
invoked by JTS to honor the spirit of those investments?
Persons who have purchased Atari products in recent years
(Lynx, Jaguar, etc.) have been led to believe that a
responsible company would back these items should they ever
cause damage or be in need of repair. What steps have been
taken to offer out-of-warranty repair and parts? Which
company has assumed those responsibilities? What steps has
any involved company taken to inform customers about their
options?
JTS absorbed a sizeable inventory of product from Atari.
What has happened to those goods?
Specifically, how were the initial funds from Atari to JTS
spent? Did any of the money go to management bonuses? If so,
how much? How big was that Atari accounts payable?
Did Atari or JTS actually start up any new software projects
after their merger was announced?
Where does mail addressed to Atari get routed? Who answers
them? Are they returned? Are they thrown away?
Regardless of what the answers are and what new questions we
ask, Hasbro will have no interest to revive Atari. Atari was
once a very large company. The predators are circling and
buzzards are pecking at the scraps.
It seems to me that the best way to keep classic gaming
alive is to pressure companies such as Sony Computer
Entertainment and Nintendo into releasing more and more
retro titles. So far, there's quite a library of classic
game reissues on the PlayStation. These are not rental
titles. These are buy-and-keep titles. Titles that you'll
want to play again and again. These are titles that exploit
the "fun factor"; an attribute in so many Atari games; even
the ones that were scrapped.
### END ###
Reprinted by permission
Next-Generation Online: Hasbro Talks Centipede 3D
The developer of Frogger has officially announced its
acquisition of Atari videogame assets, and the first title
due out from the purchase. Centipede is the first former
Atari game scheduled for release. For the first time today,
Hasbro Interactive officially announced its acquisition of
key Atari videogame licenses. The assets purchased by the
company include games such as Centipede, Missile Command,
Pong, Breakout, Battlezone, and Tempest. For only $5 million
the company scooped up the rights to more than 75 Atari
properties and hardware platforms.
Hasbro currently has plans to develop several of these games
on both the PlayStation and PC. The first of these titles
scheduled for release will be Centipede, which will hit both
platforms this fall. "These ground-breaking games helped
pioneer the videogame industry," Tom Dusenberry, president
of Hasbro Interactive said. "We intend to bring these
classics back to life by updating them with the latest
technology and interactive game design, while preserving
their heart and spirit."
The company is also considering development of these titles
on the Nintendo 64, and will likely develop handheld
versions of these games via the Tiger Electronics division
it recently purchased. At $335 million, the acquisition of
Tiger's electronic division was costly, and Hasbro will
likely use its newfound licenses to shore up some of the
purchase costs.
Next-Generation Online: Hasbro to Buy Atari from JTS
According to SEC documents and inside sources, JTS will be
selling all of its Atari holdings to a subsidiary of Hasbro.
Atari properties will almost certainly be put to good use
JTS Corp merged with Atari back in July of 1996, but since
that time it has done little with the heritage that it held
when it acquired all of Atari's games, patents and
technology. It would now seem that Hasbro has had its eye on
Atari and will be buying the former assets of Atari at a
price of $5 million.
According to the Form 8K JTS filed with the SEC:
"On February 23, 1998, JTS Corporation (the "Company") sold
substantially all of the assets of the Company's Atari
Division, consisting primarily of Atari home computer games
and the intellectual property rights and license agreements
associated with such games (the "Atari Assets"), to HIACXI,
Corp. ("HIAC"), a wholly- owned subsidiary of Hasbro
Interactive, Inc., for $5,000,000 in cash. The purchase
price was determined based upon arm's-length negotiations
between the Company and HIAC. The Atari Assets were acquired
by the Company in July 1996 when the Company merged with
Atari Corporation. There is no material relationship between
HIAC and the Company, any of its affiliates, any director or
officer of the Company, or any associate of any such
director or officer." The report goes on to detail the exact
platforms that Hasbro will gain from the purchase:
"Atari Hardware Platforms" means the following hardware
platforms: Atari 2600, 5200, 7800, Lynx hand-held and Jaguar
game system hardware, Atari 800, ST and Falcon 030 computer
family hardware, TOS operating system, 8-bit operating
system, and Portfolio palmtop computer."
On the title side of the arrangement, Hasbro will be getting
the following pieces of intellectual property and then some:
"Key Marks" means each of the following marks: Atari, the
Fuji logo, Asteroids, Battlezone, Breakout, Centipede,
Combat, Crystal Castles, Millipede, Missile Command, Night
Driver, Pong, Ultra Pong, Tempest,
Warlords and Yar's Revenge." Hasbro has experienced
excellent sales success with its previous retro title
efforts and with the Atari brand and properties to use, it's
likely that Hasbro will continue to ride the retro wave of
financial goodness.
A spokesperson for JTS offered little insight into the sale,
merely stating that he could "neither confirm nor deny the
sale." He went on to say that if there had been such a major
deal completed there would have been a press release issued.
Strangely though, as Atari passes into the hands of Hasbro,
it ends the company's jaunt with JTS raising some probing
questions. The SEC approved Atari's "merger" with JTS on the
premise that JTS would make a good faith effort to keep the
Atari side of business alive. They "absorbed" $50,000,000
plus from Atari's coffers based on that premise. In a little
more than a year, JTS sells what's left of Atari for
$5,000,000. What happened to all that money? What
investments went into satisfying the SEC commitments and
understandings? Was this fair to ATC investors?
Jaguar titles that were released after the merger had long
since been completed (Fight for Life, Iron Soldier 2, etc.)
which means that there had been no new development of
titles. Sources close to JTS have indicated that at that
point only one major project was in R&D.
Gaming Section
Sega "Dropping Out"?
"Battlezone"!
More on Hasbro Buying Atari!
"Global Domination"!
And more!
From the Editor's Controller - Playin' it like it is!
Personally, the "major" news for gaming fans is the
acquisition of Atari by Hasbro Interactive. The idea of
seeing 90's versions of such classics as Centipede, Yar's
Revenge, etc. is wonderful. We got a taste of that feeling
from such Atari Jaguar titles as Tempest 2000, Breakout
2000, and Missile Command. But the Jaguar went nowhere and
these now-classic versions are virtually hidden from the
majority of the game console community.
Bring these games out for the PC, Playstation, Nintendo64,
and consoles to come and the games will live on for quite
some time - perpetuating the Atari name and classic gaming.
I can't wait to see the fruit of Hasbro's labor!
Until next time...
Industry News STR Game Console NewsFile - The Latest Gaming
News!
Sega Halts Saturn Development On Heavy Losses
TOKYO, JAPAN, 1998 MAR 13 (Newsbytes) -- By Martyn Williams,
Newsbytes. Sega Enterprises [TOKYO:7964] has announced a
revised financial forecast for the current fiscal year on
the back of heavy losses in the North American market. It
also announced it would concentrate development work on a
next generation replacement for the Saturn console,
effectively conceding defeat to Nintendo and Sony in this
round of the video games war.
At parent level, Sega said sales are likely to be 271.00
billion yen ($2.11 billion), down 24.7 percent on the
previous year. Current profits are forecast to fall 67.0
percent to 11.00 billion yen ($85.7 million) and last year's
net profit of 5.57 billion yen ($43.4 million) is expected
to become a net loss of 39.00 billion yen ($303.7 million).
Sega had previously forecast a net profit of 15.00 billion
yen ($116.8 million) for the current year.
Group sales will be 343.00 billion yen ($2.67 billion), down
20.8 percent on the year, said Sega. It also forecast a
current loss of 9.20 billion yen ($71.7 million), from a
current profit of 12.88 billion yen ($100.3 million), and
said it will post a group net loss of 32.80 billion yen
($255.4 million), from a net profit of 2.03 billion yen
($15.8 million).
The main reason for the parent company downward revision is
a 40.00 billion yen ($311.5 million) write-off at Sega of
America, Inc. Fierce competition in the U.S. 32-bit game
console market, where its Saturn trails the Nintendo 64 and
Sony PlayStation, had resulted in the loss. An additional
7.0 billion yen ($54.5 million) write- off will be made at
its Sega Ozisoft Pty, Ltd., unit in Australia.
Sega said it will spend 10.5 billion yen ($81.8 billion) in
disposing of and devaluating current inventories. The
sluggish Japanese economy has also hit spending in games
parlors and led to 7.7 billion yen ($60.0 million) lower
than expected revenues at its Japanese amusement systems
business. At group level, the 47.00 billion yen ($366.0
million) low than originally forecast sales are accounted
for by 30.00 billion yen ($233.6 million) less from the
parent company and 17.00 billion yen ($132.4 million) lower
sales at Sega United, the company's Japanese consumer
products distribution operation.
The company's North American consumer business will see
total revenues down 8.8 billion yen ($68.5 million) on
original forecasts. Income was also hit by 13.7 billion yen
($106.7 million) start-up costs for new affiliates and a
one-time write-off of 6.7 billion yen ($52.2 million)
related to the acquisition of Sega Europe Ltd., Sega
Pinball, Inc., and Premier Loisir France S.A.
For the North American market, the company denied a report
published in the evening edition of the Nihon Keizai Shimbun
newspaper that it would pull the Saturn console from the
market. Sega said it will restructure its U.S. businesses to
lay the groundwork for the launch of a next generation
console machine in 1999 and the start-up of "Heat" network
business.
In Japan, it said the Saturn had achieved sales of five
million units but had not made the leap from the gaming
market to the general consumer market, as Sony's PlayStation
has. It said it expects the Saturn to continue to play a key
role in the consumer business, but will turn its development
sights on a new, next-generation console.
It said it hopes that a series of alliances it hopes to
establish with key industry players such as Microsoft, will
help it push into the general consumer market. Reacting to
frequent press reports that have the company withdrawing
from the hardware manufacturing business, Sega said, "The
company will continue to maintain its position as a platform
holder."
Sega: May Reorganize U.S. Units
TOKYO - Game giant Sega Enterprises says it may reorganize
three home game machine affiliates in the United States in a
bid to rebuild its overseas operations. The three units are
Sega of America, Sega Soft Networks and Sega Entertainment.
Sega, maker of the Sega Saturn video game player, says it
expects to post a parent net loss of $302 million in the
year to March 31, compared with an earlier forecast of a
profit of $116.8
million. Sega has been suffering a shrinking share in the
global video game market in the face of sales of Sony's
PlayStations and Nintendo's game machine, Nintendo64.
Sega Won't Pull Saturn From US Market
Transition to 128-bit Console
Mar 17, 1998 (MULTIMEDIA WIRE, Vol. 5, No. 51) -- Sega
Enterprises has no plans whatsoever to scuttle its Saturn
console in the U.S., but will work with retailers to manage
the transition to its next-generation 128-bit console,
code-named Katana, Sega of America says.
"Marketing support is still in place for both Saturn and a
slate of six titles soon to be released," says Sega of
America's Lee Caraher. "The console will not be pulled from
store shelves; those reports were wrong," she adds. Caraher
was referring to reports in the San Jose Mercury News and
other outlets, which directly contradict Sega's position on
Saturn.
Sega Enterprises, the Japanese parent of U.S. subsidiary
Sega of America, will take a $300m charge, however, to cover
losses in the U.S., according to recently released financial
documents in Japan. Based on projections from The NPD Group,
the Saturn console has sold 1.4m units in the US. In
November, about 15,000 units were purchased, followed by
27,000 units in December and 5,000 units in January.
Sega's focus on its next generation console is not
unexpected, says analyst Larry Marcus of BT Alex.Brown.
"[Saturn] is number three in a market that's not kind to
number three. Sony [SNE] took the leading hardware position,
and Nintendo came in at number two... [Sega] didn't build
enough third-party support to keep momentum going...The
market is not going to be interested in a new platform,
unless the software is incredible."
Katana could be introduced in late 1998 or early 1999, with
a price point of $300 or less based on estimates obtained
from Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. Robert Fagin, an analyst with
Oppenheimer, says, "If Sega can come out with something that
is the latest and greatest, then consumers and developers
won't remember the problems with Saturn." Fagin has seen a
demo of the Katana platform, and was impressed. "But, cost
wasn't an issue, and Sega had the time to make the demo look
fantastic. That's not necessarily a real-life scenario."
Activision's 'Battlezone' Ships to More Than 10,000 Stores
SANTA MONICA, Calif., March 11 /PRNewswire/ -- Gamers can
play an alternative take on the 1960's Cold War "Race for
Space" when Activision, Inc.'s "Battlezone" blasts into more
than 10,000 retail stores throughout the United States and
Canada on March 11, 1998. "Battlezone" combines the best of
action games with the best of real-time strategy games to
create a new genre -- the first-person action-strategy game.
The game takes players to the farthest reaches of the galaxy
in a struggle for control of alien technology between the
Soviet Union and the United States. "Battlezone" allows
players to take command on the battlefield and wage war from
a soldier's perspective as they confront their opponents
with a devastating array of weapons.
"Battlezone," which is based on the classic 1980 Atari
arcade game of the same name, is being launched with an
ambitious marketing campaign that includes broad-based
advertising and online and retail promotions. The game will
carry a suggested retail price of $49.95. Gamers can preview
"Battlezone" by playing a demo of the game that is posted on
Activision's web site
(http:www.activision.com/games/strategy/battlezone).
"When the original 'Battlezone' came out in 1980 it
introduced true 3-D graphics and changed the face of gaming
forever," said Alan Gershenfeld, Senior Vice President,
Activision Studio. "This new 'Battlezone' will be every bit
as revolutionary by putting strategy players in the front
lines of the battlefield action and allowing action gamers
to plan strategies and manage resources while taking aim at
their opponents."
In 1980, the original "Battlezone" arcade game introduced
players to 3-D gaming by putting them inside the cockpit of
a tank in heated warfare. The new "Battlezone" not only
pushes 3-D combat to an entirely new level, but it gives
players the power to command an army of units engaged in
aggressive, up-close and personal warfare. Gamers can blow
craters into the fully deformable 3-D terrain with an
arsenal of mines and mortars or rock their enemies with the
mega-ton earthquake of the "Thumper."
Featuring revolutionary 3-D radar, "Battlezone" thrusts
players into the role of battlefield commanders where they
gather resources, build factories, maneuver and place combat
units, and plan and execute full-scale attacks, all without
ever leaving the first person perspective. As the
ground-level high commander, gamers take charge of more than
30 different vehicles, infantry and mobile assault turrets.
"Battlezone's" intense first-person action and
uncompromising real-time strategic warfare deliver an
unprecedented gaming experience.
Take Control of the World in Psygnosis' Global Domination
FOSTER CITY, CALIF. (March 17) BUSINESS WIRE - March 17,
1998 - It's the ultimate power trip: employ the right
balance of offensive might and defensive acumen, and the
world is yours for the taking. Psygnosis' Global
Domination(TM) for PC CD-ROM and Sony's PlayStation(TM) game
console forges a new genre of game that combines 3D
strategy, war gaming and arcade combat shoot 'em up. But
whether you're pushing the "detonate" button from the safety
of your war room or shooting a hail of bullets from the
cockpit of your fighter, your goal is the same -- global
domination as Commander-In-Chief of the planet. Global
Domination is planned for release in winter of 1998.
Global Domination offers many levels of gameplay. It's a
game of strategy, speed and skill mixed with non- stop
action; and it's real-time gameplay that offers decisive
victory. It's you versus the computer in single player mode
or you versus 15 other power hungry recruits over a network.
In the year 2015, you start off as a newly trained recruit
working for ULTRA (Universal Tactical Response Agency)
resolving small conflicts. Eventually, one country comes
under your control, and you know what they say, "give 'em a
country and they want the world!" As you work your way to
the top, it falls to you to save the earth from the
oppressive grasp of World Order Enterprises or WOE (not that
being supreme ruler of the planet doesn't have its side
benefits). You can play pre-set computer generated scenarios
or design your own game with the Scenario Editor.
The game comes with 20 pre-set missions. Live action FMV
briefings before each scenario describe your mission goals
and communicate the developing story. An end-of-game Score
Sheet includes your final rank, number of territories gained
and lost, and time of game. If you want to create original
missions, the in-game Scenario Editor lets you define
numerous game components, including number of players,
technology level, who owns which countries and the
conditions for victory.
Global Domination takes real-time war gaming to the extreme
since you can take action anytime, anywhere in the world.
Determine your strategy for conquering territories, whether
it's launching major attacks against known enemies, picking
off smaller neutrals and building your base of power, or
defending other countries to gain their allegiance. You have
access to a wide range of weaponry and many modes of attack
with submarines, battleships, satellites, cruisers and
bombers at your disposal.
The game's weapons are from the past, present and future.
They include the destructive power of fuel/air explosives
and nuclear weapons, the electronic warfare capability of
elemental warheads, and the economically devastating
Firestorm warheads. Defensive weapons include basic
intercept missiles, electronic missile jammers that cause
missiles to drop on whatever county they're over, and super
advanced reverser missiles that reprogram a missile to
return to its launch site and explode. Successful missions
are rewarded with more technologically advanced weapons and
promotions through the ranks.
In addition to executing strategic missions, you also can
play Global Domination in Academy Mode and Arcade Mode.
Academy Mode is a single player mode that provides a
training section that begins with relatively easy tasks and
progresses through more and more challenging simulated
scenarios. A computer "voice" leads you through the Academy
scenarios, and your level of success at the Academy
determines your rank when you enter real action. In Arcade
Mode, the strategy element is pared down to provide a
greater arcade experience. Weapons are limited to one attack
and one defense so the action can be even more intense.
Global Domination features a new engine created especially
for the game, as well as an advanced, adaptable AI system.
The engine allows for simultaneous PC and PSX development
due to a common core of code. The AI allows all countries --
even those not directly controlled by a player -- to respond
appropriately to friendly and hostile actions. An intuitive,
approachable interface gets you playing immediately without
having to refer to a lengthy manual. Intense audio and video
components bombard your senses, and a film quality score
provides atmosphere and ambiance without intruding on the
gaming experience.
The multi-player game gives Global Domination infinite
replayability. Gameplay is simultaneous in real time and, in
addition to "every man for himself" play, multiplayer mode
also supports team play in which each team member controls a
group of territories. This allows for an even greater rate
of fire and specialized strategies like, one team member
defends while the other attacks. In multiplayer mode, up to
16 people can play on the PC over a network, serial link or
modem, and two players can use the PlayStation's link cable
to go head-to- head.
Global Domination was created for Psygnosis by its
development team at the company's Leeds Studio in England.
The minimum PC-CD ROM system requirement is a Pentium 133
with 16 Mb RAM with a 3D accelerator card. Without a 3D
accelerator card, the minimum system requirement is a
Pentium 233 with 16 Mb RAM. The recommended PC CD-ROM system
is a Pentium 200 with 32 Mb RAM and a 3D accelerator card,
or a Pentium 233 with 32 Mb RAM, non-accelerated.
Capcom and Marvel's Clash of the Titans!
SUNNYVALE, CALIF. (March 18) BUSINESS WIRE - March 18, 1998
- A collision of two great universes will erupt when Capcom
releases X-Men vs. Street Fighter(tm) for the Sony
PlayStation. Based on the mega- popular arcade blockbuster
of the same name, X-Men vs. Street Fighter is the latest
head-to-head fighter from the company that defined the
fighting game genre. In X-Men vs. Street Fighter, players
can choose from 17 of their favorite characters from both
Marvel's X-Men and Capcom's Street Fighter universes.
Bringing the worlds of comic books and video games together,
Capcom and Marvel Comics fuse together the world's most
recognizable and popular characters in this head-to-head,
fighting game for one or two players. X-Men vs. Street
Fighter will release in May at a suggested retail price of
$49.99.
Designed using Capcom's famed and fluid 2D animation, X-Men
vs. Street Fighter delivers fighting game fans the ultimate
in incredible comic book action. Unique to the Sony
PlayStation version is the EX Combo System, as seen in
Capcom's Street Fighter EX Plus Alpha. The EX Combo System
allows players to link together a series of super moves to
create massive and original super combos to finish off their
opponents in a fast and furious manner.
There are 17 playable characters to choose from which
include 8 mutants from the X-Men universe: Cyclops, Rogue,
Wolverine, Storm, Juggernaut, Magneto, Sabretooth and
Gambit. The 9 Street Fighters include: Cammy, Ken, Ryu,
Chun-Li, Akuma, M. Bison, Dhalsim, Zangief and Charlie.
X-Men vs. Street Fighter marks the return of the incredibly
popular character, Cammy, unseen since Super Street Fighter
II and marks the first video game appearance ever, of
Marvel's Gambit, Rogue, and Sabretooth. Consumers who have
access to the internet can learn more about Capcom's, X-Men
vs. Street Fighter by visiting Capcom's site on the World
Wide Web at http://www.capcom.com
Smile - You're On Game Boy Camera
REDMOND, WASHINGTON, U.S.A., 1998 MAR 19 (Newsbytes) -- By
Bob Woods, Newsbytes. When kids look at Nintendo's newest
Game Boy cartridge, parents might be puzzled by kids arguing
about whether the unit is a game or a camera. Not to fear -
the resolution to their discussion is a big "yes." On June
1, Nintendo of America will launch Game Boy Camera cartridge
and a separately sold Game Boy Printer. The cartridge-based
Game Boy Camera features a swiveling, big-eye lens that fits
into any Game Boy or Game Boy Pocket unit and turns it into
a low-cost, black-and-white digital camera and "studio."
The camera can take and store up to 30 digital images and
allows users to manipulate the images in several ways,
Nintendo officials said. Trick lenses can flip, stretch,
zoom or split the screen, among other features. In addition,
snapshots can be viewed one at a time or as a slide show in
sequential or shuffle order. And shots can also be arranged
and viewed as an animated short of up to 47 frames. Game Boy
Camera's "photo studio" functions include paint functions to
draw on or retouch a picture; a hot spot feature which, if
activated, can change music that plays on the unit, or can
jump to another photo; and images can be transferred from
unit to unit. The Game Boy Printer can then be used to print
saved images onto what kids love and parents hate --
stickers.
The camera will be available in the four colors to match
Game Boy casings: red, yellow, green and a new blue. The
Game Boy Camera has a manufacturer's suggested retail price
(MSRP) of $49.95, and the Game Boy Printer has an MSRP of
$59.95. The Game Boy Camera comes bundled with four
mini-games that allow the user to put an image of his or her
choice on the face of the main game character. A D.J. option
lets kids create their own music compositions. A link cable
and additional paper stickers will be sold separately,
officials said. Game Boy Camera was introduced last February
in Japan, where it sold nearly 500,000 units in its first
three weeks of availability, officials said.
THQ to Publish Unique Multiplayer Fighting Game, Shao Lin
CALABASAS, CALIF. (March 19) BUSINESS WIRE - March 19, 1998
- THQ Inc. Thursday announced that it has signed an
agreement with Polygram Magic of Japan to develop and
publish "Shao Lin," a PlayStation fighting game that
features simultaneous four-player combat. "Shao Lin" is
scheduled to ship in North America in November 1998. Amidst
beautiful backdrops of ancient Chinese temples and
landscapes, gamers will be able to enjoy lightning-fast 3-D
action, utilizing characters trained in six different
schools of the martial arts. Additionally, three modes of
play will offer gamers a combination of up to six players,
four of which can be human. A "Story" mode will add an
action role-playing game element to the title.
"THQ has a great opportunity to deliver to enthusiasts a
fighting game with cutting-edge technology, allowing four
players to go head-to-head at once," said Brian J. Farrell,
president and chief executive officer, THQ. "Our agreement
with Polygon Magic is another example of THQ's excellent
relationships with Japanese-based developers. It's our goal
to continue providing the U.S. market with outstanding games
from our own portfolio of properties, as well as from
Japan."
Electronic Arts Ships ReBoot for the PlayStation
SAN MATEO, CALIFORNIA -- (Canadian Corp News, MARCH 18,
1998) -- Electronic Arts, the world's largest independent
interactive entertainment software company, has begun
shipping ReBoot for the PlayStation(TM). Derived from the
popular computer animated television series of the same
name, ReBoot is a single-player, 3-D action/adventure game
that touts a lead character Bob who uses his "zipboard," a
flying skateboard, to soar around the futuristic world's
many levels mending bomb-like "tears" while ridding it of
multiple enemies.
The graphically rich game incorporates a variety of features
that are reflective of ReBoot's television counterpart
including a stockpile of weapons and gadgets to collect and
utilize, cinematic musical scores that add to the high level
of excitement and streamed real-time videos that advance the
storyline. Additionally, the game delivers smooth, realistic
character movements through its 30 frames per second frame
rate and single skin character models. These models are
designed with a single skin or mesh of polygons, which
creates a more realistic look, as opposed to a jointed
collection of angled polygons.
ReBoot, which premiered in Canada on YTV and aired on the
ABC network in the U.S., was a television first. It is a
half-hour series produced entirely using state-of-the-art
digital animation. Electronic Arts has licensed the show's
characters to create an interactive universe for the game.
"We are excited about ReBoot," said Jules Burt, the game's
producer. "It's a perfect blend of great gameplay,
showcasing PlayStation technology including an exciting
plot. With the exclusive interactive license, we've captured
the essence of the TV program with humorous dialogue,
full-screen video and real voice actors from the show.
Additionally, we've exceeded what's expected of a licensed
product in our industry by delivering what we feel is a long
lasting, highly entertaining game that easily stands out on
its own." Assuming the guardian role of Bob, the player
travels through Mainframe, an expansive 3-D world featuring
sparkling waterfalls, highways that hang in mid-air and
underground caverns. Bob's goal is to find and mend "tears"
-- destructive balls of energy that allow deadly viruses
into the world -- while waging battles against the evil
leader Megabyte and his corrupt forces.
In order to win, players must advance through the world's 18
different levels while encountering 30 powerful enemies,
both of which become progressively more challenging and
difficult to defeat. The game is set in a third-person, full
3-D perspective. Players must master quick action zipboard
moves and strategically use weapons and gadgets such as box
gun, vampire or flame-thrower while racing around Mainframe.
Throughout the game, a series of real-time streamed video
windows pop up containing Bob's friends -- Dot, Enzo and
Phong -- to help guide Bob though his objectives and
journey. ReBoot will keep players coming back for more given
the game's vast world and different endings that are based
on the player's performance.
ReBoot, exclusively for the PlayStation, is available for a
suggested retail price of $49.95 and an "E" ESRB rating.
GT Interactive Sells Rights to Midway Games
NEW YORK (March 13) BUSINESS WIRE - March 13, 1998 - GT
Interactive Software Corp. (NASDAQ: GTIS) announced today
that it has sold to Midway Games the rights to market,
distribute and sell future Midway Games PC products in North
America and Japan, but will retain both PC and console
rights to Midway Games products outside North America and
Japan.
"Domestically marketing Midway PC titles only without the
benefit of cross-marketing with consoles was sub- optimal
for both Midway and GT, however, marketing both platforms
together overseas is economic, synergistic and mutually
beneficial to both companies," said Ron Chaimowitz,
president and chief executive officer for GT Interactive
Software Corp. Sales domestically from Midway Games' PC
products were not material to GT Interactive's 1997
revenues.
Infogrames Establishes U.S. Headquarters
SAN JOSE, CALIF. (March 16) BUSINESS WIRE - March 16, 1998 -
Infogrames Entertainment Group has established U.S.
headquarters in San Jose. The 15-year-old company, which
acquired Philips Interactive Media last year, and Ocean of
America and Ocean Software (UK) in 1996, now is in the Top
15 entertainment software companies worldwide. Sales in 1997
exceeded $200 million.
The U.S. Company will be called Infogrames Entertainment
Inc. Ray Musci, formerly president of Ocean of America, is
president of the new subsidiary. Yves Blehaut, formerly
chief operating officer of Ocean of America, is chief
operating officer. Mike Markey, formerly director of channel
marketing, Sega of America, is vice president marketing.
Infogrames Entertainment Group develops and publishes
action/arcade, adventure, simulation and children's and
family titles for the PC, Sony PlayStation and Nintendo 64
game platforms. Product lines include Ocean, for teens and
young adults; Looney Tunes, for children and families; and
DID, flight simulations.
ONLINE WEEKLY STReport OnLine The wires are a hummin'!
PEOPLE... ARE TALKING
Compiled by Joe Mirando
jmirando@streport.com
Hidi ho friends and neighbors. I'm sure that there has been
lots said already in this issue about Hasbro's acquisition
of everything Atari, so I'll just touch lightly on it and
tell you what I'd like to see them do, and why. First of
all, they did indeed buy the rights to all the hardware (all
the video game machines and computers), video games
(remember Missile Command and Centipede?), and all the
proprietary coding (remember the scrolling routines that
Sega used and got sued for?).
And yes, they did get all this for a paltry five million
dollars. A sure sign that JTS is in a pinch for funds. So,
what do I think Hasbro will do with it all? Well, I'd be
willing to bet that Hasbro will milk the classic games they
now own for all they're worth (which is probably quite a bit
more than the five million dollars they paid). After that,
they will probably look to either sell or barter the rights
to patented properties (that scrolling thing). After that,
they will probably let the rest of it sit in a vault
somewhere and forget about it all, having made their money
back many times over.
What would _I_ like to see happen? Well, first I'd like to
see Hasbro use the hardware technology to come up with a
really cool web browsing machine. Not a full-blown computer,
mind you, but a machine meant for one thing... surfing the
net. "Why", you might ask? Simple. The technology of the
video game machines and computers is old. Sure, it's still
great stuff, but the sex-appeal has long since disappeared
in the eyes of the computer world. Even with the resources
that Hasbro has at its command, it would take years of
development and public relations to even begin to breach the
Intel/Microsoft wall into the computer mainstream. A web
computer, on the other hand, would have a much easier time
of gaining acceptance.
And why would I care about a web browsing machine that I
have no use for from a company that is only a puppet-like
shadow of the one that produced the computers that I have
enjoyed so much? Beats me. Perhaps it's my need to believe
that ingenuity and quality count for something, or that if
Atari becomes a popular name again I could boast about doing
a "retro" thing. Whatever the reason, I'd like to see the
Atari name become prominent again.
Well, let's take a look at what's going on in the Atari
Advantage Forum on Delphi...
My friend and fellow Atari user, Alejandro Aguilar, sent me
an interesting article he found on the NBC website, but
since it originated from Reuters we cannot reprint it here.
But it said basically that Hasbro acquired Atari from JTS
for five million dollars and got 75 classic games that it
will be converting for the PC and Sony Playstation. The
article also mentions that Hasbro also recently acquired
Tiger Electronics for the sum of 335 million dollars. It
just doesn't seem fair, does it? 5 million for Atari and 335
million for Tiger?? Oh well.
Meanwhile, "Turbo" Nick posts:
"I guess I don't understand of what use a DVD 'drive' is
with a computer. I thought DVD was for TV, sort of the 'next
generation laserdisc'. (When they start making
recordable-erasable DVDs, I can see that replacing
videotape. I often wish for a 'random-access' format when
looking for a program that I recorded on tape. (I suppose I
should learn to use the VHS Indexed Search System but it
only sounds like a small improvement)."
Greg Evans tells Nick:
"Besides movies, DVDs can be used to store data, just like a
normal CD only more than 6 times bigger!"
Nick replies:
"Whew, now that would make for one heck of a big Atari
PD/shareware/freeware collection!"
When Greg Evans asks which Atari computer would be
considered the best (most compatible) game-playing machine,
Nick tells him:
"I _think_ a 1040STe should be more compatible for games
than a Mega STe, although the speed can be turned down to
8MHz on a Mega STe. (I don't think that will work with games
disks that have to be booted, though, as the speed seems to
revert to 16MHz when the machine is rebooted.) I have used
both (our club's previous demo machine was an STe and our
current one is a Mega STe), but I haven't tried any games on
the Mega STe yet."
Greg asks Nick:
"Does it matter if the 1040 has 1 mb or 4 mb for
compatibility? I know the STE uses SIMMs so upgrading is
easy but I remember in the early days some games don't like
having extra memory for some reason. If that's still true
what's a good amount of memory?"
Michael Burkley of Suzy B Software tells Greg:
"If it's just for games I would think that you could get by
with a 2 meg STE, but the extra RAM doesn't cost much of
anything now, so you might as well get the four meg. Most
games don't require an STE, though a lot of them work better
with one (hardware scrolling and all)...
Don't worry about having too much memory on your system.
Only a few games had problems with one meg or more. There
are patch programs that will fool your system into thinking
that it has only 1/2 meg if that is the case with a game you
are interested in (see MAKE512 here in the data base or on
almost any Atari CD (including mine!)."
Nick adds:
"I must admit that I don't have a heck of a lot of
experience with games (many of them won't run on the TT and
that is where I spend most of my Atari time), so I'm really
out on a limb here. But, I remember reading about some games
that (as you say) don't like the machine to have extra
memory for some reason (maybe they grab all the memory that
exists and are confused when they find > 1MB? Just a
guess...). I also vaguely remember something about an AUTO
folder program that would in effect make some of the memory
disappear. But I don't remember if that worked on STs with >
1MB (it may have been for games that don't like > 512K, if
such games exist). That said, the usual rule is that a good
amount of memory is as much memory as possible."
Tony Greenwood tells Greg, Nick, and Michael:
"A small program called FIGGY runs from your desktop (not
auto folder) and you have a choice of configuration, a
simple click the box, half, 1 or 2 meg, as you can't
configure more than your memory and setting it to = your
memory, then we can presume the program can be used for 4
meg machines and upwards,
I have used this program for many yrs, when I had a one meg
machine to test my software on half meg.. and with 2 meg and
my current 4 meg to test for one meg compat' AFAIK its
available from any ftp site. Just look for figgy,"
Al Horton asks about getting a printer:
"If you were to walk into an Office Depot, or Office Max, or
Best Buy, or CompUSA, etc etc etc and needed a printer to
hook up to your STe, Falcon, or TT, what brand/model would
you look for that would give you the LEAST amount of trouble
in finding drivers, compatibility, etc?? Considering that
everything today is software driven and that HP comes out
with a new model number every 12 days, is there anything on
the market that pretty much will work with any Atari program
like Pagestream, Calamus, Timeworks DTP, etc? The printer
does not have to do color but just give good print results
with the fewest headaches. Thanks in advance for any
suggestions."
Greg Evans tells Al:
"For laser get any HP II or HP IV compatible printer. You
should have no trouble getting a printer driver to work. For
color, the Epsons are more compatible, I think, as HP keeps
changing models. The Epsons are all downward compatible so
an older 360 or 720 DPI driver should work on the new 1440
DPI machines."
Al re-caps:
"So, if I'm understanding you, if I were to walk into
CompUSA and buy an Epson color printer, it should work with
most of the programs that I would be using, such as
Pagestream 2.2se, Calligrapher Gold, That's Write, ST
Writer, Timeworks DTP, etc. etc? I wouldn't have to hunt
down any other drivers to use the Epson inkjets?"
Greg tells Al:
"The Epson will work with Pagestream for sure. Whatever
programs use GDOS and therefore NVDI will also work. I don't
know if Speedo GDOS has an Epson driver but it probably
does. NVDI definitely does. I can't remember what drivers
Calligrapher has (hey, I just shipped it to you!). ST Writer
will work but you'll have to create a driver file to get
special effects. Papyrus has a driver (I know you didn't
mention that one). Don't know about That's Write and
Timeworks, although Timeworks might use the NVDI driver.
Calamus SL also has a driver."
"Turbo" Nick adds:
"I can't say for sure about the other programs, but my Epson
Stylus 600 works with PageStream 2.2se. I downloaded the
driver from here on Delphi. The next thing I may try with it
is ImageCopy 2, whose manual says that it has driver(s) for
Epson inkjet printers."
"Turbo" Nick asks for help with STiK, the ST Internet Kit:
"I would like to hear from whoever first figured out how to
configure STiK (or STiNG I guess, although I haven't tried
that yet) for use with Delphi. I want to know how you
determined the various parameter settings (I think they are
TCP parameters, at least that's what STiK's generic
[example] config file says about them). I am trying to get
STiK and CAB working with my local ISP. The tech support
people there (who of course know next to nothing about Atari
stuff) have only been able to supply a few of the values,
really only a couple (and one guy gave me the wrong value
for one parameter - the first guy had it right, AND the
ISP's SLIP s/w spits it out [it's the MTU] when you request
a SLIP connection upon login anyway). Currently, STiK will
connect, but when I try to use CAB, it can't resolve any
host (I am trying some of the same sites that I usually go
to with CAB when using Delphi for an ISP). It also appears
to corrupt CAB.OVL, because when I switch (copy) back using
Delphi config and dial script files, I get runtime errors,
and re-installing CAB.OVL makes it work again."
Joe Villarreal tells Nick:
"I've got Stik configured with the same values for a Delphi
connection and a local BBS/internet provider. I uploaded a
configuration file to Delphi for Stik that really increases
the speed, for me at least. I still use this setting for my
local provider and for Delphi and it has been working great
for almost a year. I also have Sting configured and can use
it from Delphi, (Slip, CSlip and PPP), CompuServe (PPP
connection), and thru the local BBS/internet provider (Slip
& CSlip). I haven't figured out how to use PAP with Sting
thru the local provider.
Make sure your provider supports Slip. Stik 1.12 won't work
with CSlip. The hardest part to configure is the dial
script. Unless you get it just right, you won't be able to
connect. I used Stalker and Steno to log on and then checked
the capture carefully in order to figure out how to set up
the dial script. Still, it took several
attempts to get it just right.
I have MSS set at 1500. MTU is set at 960 or 980. The higher
the value of MTU the slower it seems to get. Basically, I
played with the different settings every day for a couple of
months. I also had an old Internet book that explained the
different terms that Stik uses. can get a faster connection
using Stik than using Sting. I also have problems with Sting
resolving some sites. Haven't quite figured out how to
configure it yet."
Al Horton asks a question about a controversy as old as the
personal computer industry itself... piracy:
"I'm not trying to start a debate here; just looking for
peoples opinions and views on whether Emulators and
commercial software are legal/moral.
Question: if you have an Emulator (whether it be for an ST,
Atari 2600, Colecovision, Atari 800, etc.) and use
disk/program ROM's or images of commercial titles (like 2600
Pac-Man or Atari 800 Star Raiders, etc.) is this legal?
The reason I ask is because I have had several people Email
me or phone my business and state that they use
such-and-such an emulator on their PC and want to know if I
have ROMS/IMAGES that I can either sell them or provide for
them free of charge. At first, I was taken aback and thought
of this as just the same as using a pirate version of a
program. But with the proliferation of these emulators and
the ROMS/IMAGES all over the Internet I got to thinking that
maybe I'm missing a point here. When I questioned one of the
people who called me about the legality of Emulation they
responded that as long as you were emulating a program then
you weren't doing nothing illegal. Hmmm... doesn't sound
right with me but then again I don't know everything.
So, I thought I would just put this question to the good
people of Delphi and see what the general opinion is of
emulators and ROMS/IMAGES."
Tony Greenwood tells Al:
"It's not a matter of opinion ,It's illegal, the copying,
use or whatever of copyrighted material in any form , for
any use is illegal, in no country or law or set of rules are
there ever a clause that says.... This is Copyright, but not
if your using an emulator ... Tos is copyrighted, its a bit
vague as to who to ?.. but it is illegal to sell copy or
pass on tos images, images of commercial software is just as
illegal,"
I add my two cents worth:
"As far as I'm concerned, there is only one measuring stick
for the piracy issue: If you use commercial software
(including TOS) that you haven't paid for, it's piracy. Most
of us have heard arguments like "Well, this will actually
help the Atari platform because it makes it easier for
people to get a hold of the STuff". Yes, it sounds
ridiculous to us, but some of these folks actually seem to
believe it.
Since TOS is a copyrighted property, getting it for nothing
is piracy. What would NOT be piracy is purchasing the ROMs
and having an image made of them. Since the 'license' is for
the use of the code and not the ROMs themselves. I see
nothing wrong whatsoever with emulators or TOS images as
long as no one's copyright is infringed upon. I believe that
there are a few places that have gotten permission to burn
and sell TOS ROMs. They may also be able to sell the images
on disk, but I haven't heard of anyone buying TOS in that
form."
Our own Dana Jacobson tells Al that it's...
"Definitely a good topic for debate! If I own an ST and PC,
I should have the right to make TOS images so I can use the
emulation on my PC. If I don't own an ST, I would consider
having such images as piracy. There's little to debate. If
you don't own TOS, you can't use it. Spectre 128/GCR....the
only way to use it [legally] was to have Mac ROMs in the
cartridge. You had to buy them. Pirated ROMs made their use
illegal."
Michael Burkley tells Dana:
"You're right. It's illegal to use a ROM image or a game
image without the authors' company's permission. It's done,
but it's not legal."
Well folks, we'll end off here and save the rest for next
time around. If you come across anything interesting, please
feel free to send it along to me like Alejandro did. I
couldn't use the post because Reuters News Service prohibits
reprinting without written permission, but I was still able
to tell you about it. Thanks Ale!
Well 'till next time, remember to be ready to listen to what
they are saying when...
PEOPLE ARE TALKING
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