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{   File Name : 'November95.txt',   02-Nov-95                            }
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{========================================================================}
{                                                                        }
{   Diversity : The Official Journal of the International Amiga Society  }
{   Editor: James Burton ( James@Snark.apana.org.au )                    }
{   Volume 1, Issue 2, 01-Nov-95                                         }
{                                                                        }
{========================================================================}

Contents 
    * News               
    * The Quest for Material
    * Reader Mail
    * Credits & Contributions 
                 
{========================================================================}
{   News                                                                 }
{========================================================================}

On the 22nd of October Thomas Tavoly (ttavoly@amiga.ow.nl) posted to the 
comp.sys.amiga.misc newsgroup (and a few others as well) that Manfred 
Schmitt and Gilles Bourdin appeared on T.V. in Germany. I won't go into 
details, I'll just note that they were proudly pushing the Amiga line and 
standing firmly behind their new products. This is NOT the sign of a 
company who has bought a name only. It is now clear that things are 
looking up for the Amiga, and I feel that this is a turning point for us. 
(You can find the whole article in Amiga Report 319). 
                        
Workbench Snap of the Month Competition
=======================================

The INTERNATIONAL AMIGA SOCIETY hereby announces The Workbench Snap of
the month competition. We will run this in order to encourage Amiga
users to register with the IAS, and to increase the level of activity
and excitement in the Amiga world. 

Each month between the 1st and the 20th entries will be accepted via 
email to 
    WB Snap Comp. Entry - IAS-Queries@ArtWorks.apana.org.au 
or by normal mail to 
    IAS Workbench Snap of the Month 
    P.O. Box 201 
    Kingsbury, Victoria 3083 
    Australia

Between the 21st and the 1st of the next month, the entries will be
scrutinised by 4 judges, with the results being published on the 1st
at 
    http://Snark.apana.org.au/IAS/WBSnap/ and in the IAS newsletter.
Actually we only have 3 judges, so if you would like to be a judge
then please contact us. 

The rules and a complete description are available at 
    WB Snap Comp. Home Page - http://Snark.apana.org.au/IAS/WBSnap/ 
or by asking at either of the above addresses. 

The only restriction is that you must be an IAS member, or a member 
of an IAS member organisation. 

Entries will first be accepted during November and results published 
on December 1st. 

New Web Sites 
=============

This month I can tell you about several new web sites. First
of all I should say that the IAS home page system as maintained by
John Paden is still growing. Good work John, and to all the other
people who have contributed. I suggest you check this out regularly.
For those who have forgotten the URL is 
    IAS Home Page - http://falcon.cc.ukans.edu/~dangermo/IAUG/ 

Also there is a new interface to Amiga sites that looks just like 
your workbench. Try out
    Workbench Interface - http://Snark.apana.org.au/IAS/Workbench 

This includes a page containing the whole set of Amiga Report magazines
from the very first issue to the present. 

Both the ESCOM and the new Amiga Technologies companies have set up 
home pages. 
    Amiga Technologies - http://www.amiga.de/ 
    ESCOM - http://www.escom.de/ 
As of writing these are both in German only. Strangely enough the Amiga
Technologies page is also available as 
    Amiga Technologies - http://www.amiga-tech.de/ 
and 
    Amiga Technologies - http://www.amiga-tech.com/ 
but not 
    Amiga Technologies - http://www.amiga.com/ 
also this is of interest 
    Virtual Products - http://www.virtual-products.de/ 
Also this month a new computer was launched called the BeBox, by a 
company called Be Incorporated. Aparently the company is headed by 
some guy who was kicked off the board of Apple a few years back. A 
very very vague rumour has it that AT people had a few words with 
Be. Anyway this certainly looks like it might be an interesting machine 
so check it out for yourself at:
    http://www.be.com/TechInfo/TechIntro.html 
For those of you into bagging Mr. Bill, spend some time running 
through the voluminous material collected here: 
    http://www.micros0ft.com/ 
And finally there is a new registration point. You can now register 
with the IAS using the form as follows 
    IAS-Register - http://ArtWorks.apana.org.au/IAS/Register.html 

New version of NetBSD 
=====================

A new version of NetBSD, the popular multiplatform UNIX operating system
that runs on Amigas should be available by November 17th. Beta copies
should be available before that. Since it's previous release v1.0 in
October 1994 or thereabouts, NetBSD has been known as quite a stable
operating system, rivalling several popular commercial systems. If I
was to write as much hype as the marketing departments of the
companies releasing competing operating systems I might just say that
it will be the most advanced operating system to never make it to the
market. Rumour says that the NetBSD core development team, by all
accounts a group of volunteers have been talking to several high
profile rock groups about using their songs in NetBSD promotional
material. An unnamed source on the NetBSD core team said "This should
be the most significant move by an operating system group ever made.
This will revolutionise the marketing of computer based products." The
new version will be called v1.1. Talk has it that version v1.2 will be
out two months later to fix several bugs found in alpha testing. Said
one alpha tester "At least we didn't have to pay for the priveledge of
testing the product." The product is totally free and can be found on
the following sites. There are also numerous newsgroups, mailing lists
and support sites available. 
    NetBSD Web site - http://www.netbsd.org/
    NetBSD FTP site - ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/ 

{========================================================================}
{   The Quest for Material                                               }
{========================================================================}

Presentations & Demonstrations 
==============================

Have you ever tried to organise demonstrations for usergroup meetings? 
Then you will know that this is very difficult. You can demonstrate maybe 
a few pieces of software or borrow some hardware from the local dealer 
and give it a go, but it takes a lot of time & energy. What if you could 
get hold of tried and tested presentations from the network? This would 
save you that trouble every month. And if you do a nice presentation, 
wouldn't it make you feel great if you knew that you were helping other 
Amiga usergroups around the world? John Paden, our webmaster is trying to
set up an archive of presentations some of which may come from
usergroups, some may be multimedia demos for shop windows, some may be
arranged by a hardware or software company trying to sell more of it's
product. If you have such a setup, or any form of presentation then
please make it available; send it to John and he can make it available
on the website, or put a link to if there. As always you can contact
John on 
    dangermo@falcon.cc.ukans.edu 

Annual Amiga Awards (AAA) 
=========================

Another new idea that could help to generate a bit of excitement over 
the next few years is to have an Oscars type peer review award. The idea
(attributed to Giorgio Gomelsky) is that we have an annual global
presentation of a title (e.g. person who has done most for the Amiga
in 1995) perhaps hosted on an IRC channel. Giorgio also suggested that
the awards be named after Jay Miner. I guess that would make the full
title "The Miner Annual Amiga Awards" or MAAA. The point is to
encourage (literally to instill courage into) people to do things for
the Amiga community. Perhaps the first award could be presented to
Manfred Schmitt. Anyway we need an organising committee to set this
idea up and to make it a success. I am going to start organising it
but I don't really have the time or the energy to do it all. It sounds
to me like it will be a big job. But what I will do is try to build a
committee of dedicated people who like the idea and then we'll take it
from there. So please if you do like the idea, get involved. I'm now
going to present two lists. The first list is a list of ideas that
need to be filled in. The second is a list of jobs that need to be
filled on the organising committee. 

    * Ideas List 
        - Full & proper title
        - Date for the presentation ceremony (JM's death, birth of Amiga,
          purchase by ESCOM) 
        - Method of holding presentation ceremony (IRC or what) 
        - decisions by popular voting or judges (I suggest some categories
          of each, e.g. peer review in technical areas, popularity in others)
        - categories (best work for Amiga, best graphic, best modfile, best
          freeware/shareware program,best commercial SW,best commercial HW)
        - Person who has done most for the Amiga community in the year (auto.
          entry into the hall of fame) 
        - A hall of fame 
    * Committee positions
        - Committee chair 
        - Judges/Returning Officers 
        - event coordinator 
        - host
        - publicity officer 

Collection of funny Amiga stories 
=================================

Over the years that I have been reading Amiga magazines and Amiga 
newsgroups and files I found on BBSs and exchanging email with other 
Amiga people I have heard literally hundreds of funny stories related 
to Amigas. Things like washing an Amiga in soap and water when it got 
muddy. Somebody related a tale once about taking an Amiga on the back 
of a motorbike, it fell off, and still worked. Anyway if you have a story
of interest, funny, amusing, or just plain curious, please sent it to
Johan Torin. Johan is collecting such anecdotes to make an interesting
document for everybody to read. 
    Johan Torin - IAS-Funny@ArtWorks.apana.org.au 
Johan promises to keep the anthology up to date in his web pages 
somewhere. You can find Johan's home page at 
    Johan Torin - http://ArtWorks.apana.org.au/~johan/ 

Material for the newsletter 
===========================

What is considered appropriate material for the newsletter?
Well anything really, if you have a new product that you want
announced, or a press release that you want to appear in here then
just send it to the editor. In fact if you want to put your opinions
or express your feelings or write a complete article send it in. Any
ideas welcome. 

{========================================================================}
{   Reader Mail                                                          }
{========================================================================}

{========================================================================}
{   Credits & Contribution                                               }
{========================================================================}

Contributors (in no particular order) 
    * James Burton 

To contribute material or comment on Diversity 
    please feel free to contact the editor James Burton on 
    James@Snark.apana.org.au 
    P.O. Box 201
    Kingsbury 3083, Victoria
    Australia

Contacting the IAS coordinators 
    The IAS coordinators are members who coordinate various functions that 
    the IAS feels responsible for. They are available by mailing to the
    internet address 

    IAS-Coordinators@ArtWorks.apana.org.au 

Adding web pages or modifying material in the web pages 
    Contact John Paden (dangermo@falcon.cc.ukans.edu ) who is webmaster 
    for the IAS. 

Subscribing to the members' mailing list 
    We have set up a mailing list for the members of IAS. You can and should 
    subscribe to the mailing list if you have an internet mailbox by
    sending a message to the address 

    majordomo@ArtWorks.apana.org.au 

    containing the lines as follows: 

        subscribe ias [your email address] 
        quit 

Availability of Diversity 
    Diversity will be posted to the members' mailing list shortly after
    the HTML version has been completed each month, in plain text form. 
    The HTML versions are always available at the address 

    Diversity - http://Snark.apana.org.au/IAS/Diversity/

{========================================================================}
{   End of File 'November95.txt'                                         }
{========================================================================}



From owner-ias@Artworks.apana.org.au Sun Nov 12 14:37:24 1995
Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 00:32:30 +1100
To: pt95gka@pt.hk-r.se
From: Majordomo@Artworks.apana.org.au
Subject: Welcome to ias
Reply-To: Majordomo@Artworks.apana.org.au
Content-Length: 1756
X-Lines: 47
Status: RO

--

Welcome to the ias mailing list!

If you ever want to remove yourself from this mailing list,
you can send mail to "Majordomo" with the following command
in the body of your email message:

    unsubscribe ias pt95gka@pt.hk-r.se

Here's the general information for the list you've
subscribed to, in case you don't already have it:

International Amiga Society
===========================

Members mailing list - so that the various IAS
members can keep up with what each other are doing.

Subscriptions are **NOT** automatic, but require approval
from the list administrator.

This mailing list has been set up as a distribution list so that only
the list owner (me!) can post to it. That way it doesn't fill up your
mailboxes with tons of unsolicited material. The idea is just to keep
IAS members informed, but not overwhelmed, So only important IAS related 
information will be posted here, and the newsletter. The newsletter 
will be posted in pure text form on or about the 1st of each month. If 
you want to get the attention of IAS members then mail stuff directly to me
and I will either post it directly or add it to the newsletter. If you are
on this list as a representative member of a usergroup, development team,
company, distributor or whatever, then please make sure that all of your
members receive the material posted here.

Please if you are on this list and not registered either directly or through
a group registration then contact me ASAP. If you want to unsubscribe then
send a mail message to "majordomo@ArtWorks.apana.org.au" containing the
line as follows:

unsubscribe ias

If this fails then please contact me directly immediately.

James Burton (30/October/1995)
James@Snark.apana.org.au
http://Snark.apana.org.au/James/


From james@Snark.apana.org.au Sun Nov 12 14:38:10 1995
From: james@Snark.apana.org.au (James Burton)
Subject: no subject (file transmission)
X-Mailer: //\\miga Electronic Mail (AmiElm 5.42)
Date: Mon, 13 Nov 95 00:13:21 AEST
Organization: Melbourne ArtWorks
To: pt95gka@pt.hk-r.se
Content-Length: 4158
X-Lines: 88
Status: RO


International Amiga Society
===========================

Welcome everybody to the IAS. I include the information about this
mailing list below. I'll also list for you the documents that will 
be sent to this list in the next few weeks. But first I would like
to thank everybody for their support. Prior to going public we were
only about 8 or 10 people with a strong interest in the survival
of the Amiga. There are 60 email addresses on this list before I post
the first message. We hope that many more people sign up before the
year is out. So please to make this a going concern if you know
any individuals that are not registered members, or more especially
organisations, then please ask them to do so. It costs nothing and
can only benefit everybody involved. Many of you have offered time
and help and expertise. The answer is YES PLEASE. At the moment we
are still trying to build a structure for the group, so it is a bit
hard for me to give you a list of jobs that need doing. Needless to
say, if you have an idea, and MANY of you do then we would love to
help you implement it. The best way to suggest ideas is to send them
to IAS-Queries@ArtWorks.apana.org.au (currently answered by me) and
we'll get back to you ASAP.

These are the materials you should receive shortly.

        - Introductory message (funny, you just got that :-)
        - Newsletter November 1995 (around the 1st)
        - INFO document (around next Saturday according to our plans)

The INFO document is the one we've all been waiting for. It will describe
the structure and the scope of the organisation - at least for the building 
up period, and some of the ideas that we have started to implement. Of 
course as more people come on board, there will be more work done on ideas 
and more to report. In that stage the central characters of the IAS will
become administrative (president. treasurer, tea-robot, ...) and describing
the scope of the organisation will become much harder. Most importantly
is that we all help to build up excitement and productivity and to keep
the Amiga alive.

Oh, by the way I should introduce myself. My name is James Burton, I live
in Melbourne, Australia. I am currently the Secretary of the IAS. My
email address and web pages are below. Most importantly, I am typing this
from my Amiga3000 called Snark.apana.org.au.

Mailing list description
========================
NOTE: if you feel we need a discussion list as well, let me know. Maybe
we can eventually get our own newsgroup.
-----
Members mailing list - so that the various IAS
members can keep up with what each other are doing.

Subscriptions are **NOT** automatic, but require approval
from the list administrator.

This mailing list has been set up as a distribution list so that only
the list owner (me!) can post to it. That way it doesn't fill up your
mailboxes with tons of unsolicited material. The idea is just to keep
IAS members informed, but not overwhelmed, So only important IAS related 
information will be posted here, and the newsletter. The newsletter 
will be posted in pure text form on or about the 1st of each month. If 
you want to get the attention of IAS members then mail stuff directly to me
and I will either post it directly or add it to the newsletter. If you are
on this list as a representative member of a usergroup, development team,
company, distributor or whatever, then please make sure that all of your
members receive the material posted here.

Please if you are on this list and not registered either directly or through
a group registration then contact me ASAP. If you want to unsubscribe then
send a mail message to "majordomo@ArtWorks.apana.org.au" containing the
line as follows:

unsubscribe ias

If this fails then please contact me directly immediately.

James Burton (30/October/1995)
James@Snark.apana.org.au
http://Snark.apana.org.au/James/
-----

-- 
James Burton          |   (secretary of The International Amiga Society)
P.O.Box 201           |   EMail: James@Snark.apana.org.au
Kingsbury 3083        |   WWW  : http://Snark.apana.org.au/james/
Melbourne, Australia  |   I find myself haunted by a spooky man named me.



From ias-owner@artworks.apana.org.au Sun Nov 12 17:27:55 1995
Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 01:46:45 +1100
From: owner-ias@artworks.apana.org.au
To: ias@artworks.apana.org.au
Subject: IAS: System-File Name Registration - A Global Resource
Sender: owner-ias@artworks.apana.org.au
Reply-To: ias@artworks.apana.org.au
Content-Length: 2671
X-Lines: 53
Status: RO


Sorry about the INFO file release date slipping, we are having
enormous troubles with internet providers. In the meantime here
is something to keep you occupied. This will appear in newsgroups
starting today.

James.

+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
|        The        International        Amiga        Society         |
|      Requesting     Comments     from     Amiga     Developers      |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
|      GLOBAL         SYSTEM-FILE         NAME         REGISTRY       |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+

    Amiga programmers have been creating *.library files for over 10
    years now, and quite a few times over that period there have been
    conflicts between the names of these files. So The International
    Amiga Society would like to receive suggestions and comments from
    software developers about the feasibility of setting up a global
    system file name registry. 

        With a global name registry, before you create a catalog
    file, a device file, a library file or any other system file you
    would check with the registry whether there was already an existing
    file of that name somewhere, and maybe register a file name for your
    own use. Ideally such a system would foster greater compatibility
    between different Amiga products, both commercial and public domain
    products. It would provide a framework for conflict resolution
    which does not involve the end user (as it does now), although no
    mechanism for this currently exists. And it would remove one area of
    worry for Amiga programmers.
    
        Given that such a registry is of immeditate (although perhaps small)
    benefit to the Amiga community, that running it would cost little
    in terms of time and resources, The International Amiga Society would
    be an ideal vehicle for such a system. It is with this in mind that
    we hereby request for appropriate discussion of the issues involved
    and any other concerns that you might have to take place. Once the
    issues become clear, the IAS will take steps to ensure that such
    a system is put in place.

+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
|   Queries should be addressed to IAS-Queries@ArtWorks.apana.org.au  |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+





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