From: OLAF_KAISER Internet Gateway To: S.LYSTER Stuart Lyster Sub: proTOS Hi Stuart, here is the promised text about the proTOS convention. Please excuse my bad English! But I have done my best. ;-) ********************************************************************** proTOS convention The proTOS convention, the biggest convention for ATARI computers in europe, opened its doors at the last weekend in november at the "Messegelaende" Bonn (Germany). Most of the european companies, which develope for the ATARI market, some companies from overseas and APPLE Computer (!) were there. ATARI itself wasn't there! The proTOS convention was organized by some of the German ACCs (ATARI COMPETENCE CENTER). At first I want to talk about the three ultimitive highlights of this convention: - MEDUSA T60 (the first TOS based computer with a MC68060) - EAGLE (an ATARI clone with MC68030) - MagiC Mac (TOS soft emulation for APPLE MacIntosh computers) MEDUSA T40/T60 The Medusa T60 is the successor of the Medusa T40, the first ATARI clone ever made. The T40 works with a MC68040 / 64 MHz (internal). That means a power of 26 MIPS (ATARI F030: 3.84 MIPS). The new T60 with its MC68060 / 64 MHz has a power of 100 MIPS (!). Both computers work with 32 bit data and adress buses. Price: about 3800 US$ (68040 mainboard + ST/IO card) The MEDUSA computers are made by MEDUSA Computer Systems F. Aschwanden Buchhaldenstrasse 16 8610 Uster Switzerland Phone: +41 1 940 92 54 Fax: +41 1 940 19 49 EAGLE The second TOS compatible computer is the EAGLE from GE-Soft. At the moment it only can be bought with a MC68030 / 32 MHz. But this 030 version is two times faster than a ATARI TT, because the EAGLE has a better bus system than the TT. This bus system called EAGLE Channel is a 32 bit FULL-RANGE-CHANNEL which includes all signals and it is independent of the used CPU. It can work with MC680x0 CPUs, but it can work with PPC, ALPHA and Intel 486/586 CPUs, too. In spring 1995 versions with MC68040 / 64 MHz and MC68060 / 64 MHz will be available. Price: about 2500 US$ (68040 version) The EAGLE is manufactured and distributed by GE-Soft mbH Computersysteme Landgrafenstrasse 37-39 53842 Troisdorf Germany Phone: +49 2241 40 64 92 Fax: +49 2241 40 65 89 Now, after talking about the hardware highlights of that convention, I will speak about the software highlight: MagiC Mac MAGIC MAC What is MagiC Mac? MagiC is a multitasking OS like MultiTOS or Geneva which runs on ATARI ST(E) and TT. MagiC Mac is the same for Apple Computers (030 and 040 CPUs) which allows to run TOS software on Apple hardware. But MagiC Mac is not a slow software emulator. With MagiC Mac TOS software is running on Apple computers much more faster than on a ATARI TT! With MagiC Mac you can run CALAMUS SL, SIGNUM!3, PHOENIX, TWIST II, HARLEKIN III, PURE C and many more on Apple computers. MagiC Mac is distributed by Application Systems Heidelberg Software GmbH P.O. Box 10 26 46 69016 Heidelberg Germany Phone: +49 6221 30 00 02 Fax: +49 6221 30 03 89 BBS: +49 6221 30 36 71 These highlights were not the only new products which can be seen and tested at that great convention. Other companies which were at the proTOS and their new products (in alphabetical order) (only new products are listened) AKZENTE (Germany) - CURE Audio/BASIC: new HD-recording software ARTLINE (Germany) - new modules for CALAMUS SL ASH / APPLE (Germany/USA) - MagiC Mac - Signum! 3.5 (a good wordprocessing software) BEHNE & BEHNE (Germany) - NVDI 3.01 (new version of NVDI with SPEEDO fonts and True Type fonts) Best electronics (USA) - Barracuda (a new 040 accelerator for the F030 / is not ready) - GST-MCU (SMD chip) BLOW UP (Germany) - Gut'nberg (new DTP software) CATCH COMPUTER (Germany) - PowerUpTT (accelerator for TTs / 32/48 MHz) CCD (Germany) - Tempus Word 2.9 (new version) CICERO (Germany) - Cicero Cross (developing tools: from ATARI to MAC or WINDOWS) COMPO/OVERSCAN (Germany) - That's write 4.0 (new version) - SpeedoGDOS 5.0 (new version) - Overlay II (new version of a multimedia software) - APEX media (to make FLI/C files, morhping / full DSP support (!)) - Screenblaster III (inside) (to get higher screen resolutions) - COMPOnium (music software) DELTA LABS (Germany) - JAnE (new texteditor with a comfortable macro-recorder and GDOS support) - whiteline CD alpha (CD-ROM with ATARI share- and pd-ware) - LINUX for TOS machines (UNIX for MC68k computers) GE-SOFT (Germany) - EAGLE (new TOS computer) HANSEN SOFTWARE (Germany) - Fractals 5 (software to generate fractals) HARD & SOFT (Germany) - Speed resolution card (F030 speed (40 MHz) and resolution (TC in 640*400 at 70 Hz) accelerator) - SCSI-Tools and CD-Tools 2.0 (with MetaDOS 2.45) (new versions) MEDUSA COMPUTER SYSTEMS (Switzerland) - MEDUSA T40 and MEDUSA T60 (new ATARI clones) MW Electronic (Germany) - PAK 68/3 (ST-accelerator with 68030 / 50 MHz and fastRAM card) NO!-SOFTWARE (Germany) - NeoN 3D (to design 3D computer graphics and animations / with scenery-, object-, material- , animations-editor and modules for rendering an raytracing) PAGEDOWN (Germany) - presentation of the JAGUAR and new JAGUAR-games like AvP and IRON SOLDIER - Script 4.0 (new version) TKR (Germany) - Tele Office 3.0 (fax software) STEINBERG (Germany) - Cubase Audio 16 (MIDI and HD-recording software for 16 tracks) and many other companies more! The proTOS convention was a big success for all; companies and visitors. Companies sold a lot of soft- and hardware and visitors had the possibility to update their software, to buy cheap hard- and software and to talk with developers. This convention showed, that the ATARI market isn't dead! And if ATARI don't develop new hardware, there will be other companies which will do it! Sorry that I haven't got the time to write more about the listened products. If anyone wants to have more information about a special product or the adress of one company, please connect me: olaf_kaiser@bi.maus.de