NEWS

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NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS
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 OVERALL NEWS:
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- The first digital VCR is introduced by Sony, the logical next step after 
  D.C.C. and DAT. Maybe we also can store data on it, in the near future !? 
  Here comes the digital revolution ! 


- Maggie will soon celebrate their 5th anniversary and will throw some sort of 
  party around august 1995. Further details are not known till this date.


- The Independent are organizing their third 'Fried Bits Eastern Coding 
  Convention' this year.  An estimated number of 45 groups will attend 
  to this event. These groups come from Germany, Sweden, Netherlands, 
  France, U.K. and Austria. Four different computer magazines will 
  cover this big happening. With a bit of luck, we will bring you a 
  real-time article just like the previous years. 

  Many different competitions will be held like a demo, 96ktro, graphics 
  and module competition. Prizes will vary between the 5.000 to 10.000 
  DM (prices may include a Jaguar).   


- All dutch Demo crews have seized to exist, The D.B.A. is the only active 
  Falcon crew left which is quite a frightening experience ! Germany seems to 
  have the most active Falcon scene with some moral sponsoring by the German 
  magazine ST Computer. This magazine publishes articles about all German 
  democrews. 


- Atari and Sega have come to an agreement over software licenses. The latter 
  agreed on paying Atari an estimated figure of 80 million U.S. dollars. The 
  battle was fought over software licenses of well-known Atari games that where 
  converted by Sega. Hopefully Atari will use this money for some advertising 
  to push the Jaguar where it belongs, at the top !! I'm not sure anymore about 
  that 80 million, I saw figures of 90 million and even 40 million !


- An external company will produce Falcons. Atari doesn't produce this machine
  anymore as you probably already know. Rumours go that this company will 
  create new models. 


- A new Batman movie will see the light at the end of 1995 and also a new 
  James Bond movie. In the James Bond movie will be role for a dutch girl. 
  Needless to say that we look forward to seeing it.


  PAPER MAGAZINE'S
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- The British 'ST Magazine' has folded, it seems that only ST Format is left 
  in the U.K. ! A big blow to the international Atari community !

- The German Atari magazine 'ST computer' has competition from a brand 
  new magazine. This magazine goes by the name 'Atari Inside' and is 
  recently introduced to the public. However there is one disadvantage 
  judging from it's cover, it's completely written in German ! 


 INTERNET:
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- Internet is booming as thousands and thousands of new people discover the 
  super digital highway every day. In the Netherlands are only 23 companies 
  that offer access to the net. However Dutch Telecom will provide also 
  services within the next couple of years. Dutch Telecom will also gain some 
  mayor competition as a new Telecom company will see the light of day at the 
  end of 1995. It's joined operation of the Dutch Railroad and the Energy 
  companies. Both Dutch Telecom and the new company will use optical fiber for 
  the complete network. The public will profit from 1998 on. Lets hope for a 
  major price battle !!

  Some info about Internet: 

* There are around 4 million computers 'linked' together at the moment.
* Around 40 million users are registered !*
* There over 159 countries connected to the net including Antarctica !

- We got some more news on the Internet, Hackers have discovered a fault in
  the Internet system which allows them to hack into every system on the net. 
  It has something to do with faking rights or something like that. They 
  managed to break into the computer of a well-known expert on security. A   
  whole day long, the hackers have been browsing through his computer and they 
  found all kinds of codes and passwords. So be warned, if your part of the 
  net ! 


 CD-ROM:
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- A Japanese firm (TDK) will release fully writable CD-ROMs(?) this year. 
  Nothing is known about the prices of these CDs and the equipment needed to 
  write on them. It sure beats a tapestreamer !! Prices will certainly be 
  high. A price increase on writable CDs can be expected as pirates will 
  certainly take advantage of this new opportunity. B.t.w. CD-Roms containing 
  illegal software are already roaming the swapping circuit for half a year 
  now. These CDs are packed to the brim with zipped games and utilities, 
  complete with a menu for easy installing on the Harddrive.


- Talking about CD-Rom, the diskette has had it, every new game or application 
  will be released on CD-Rom on virtually every platform except for the Atari. 
  It's sad to say that Atari was the first to 'announce' it and the last to 
  actually use it. There are only 6/7 CDs for the Atari range. You can also buy 
  CD-Roms made for the PC. 

  It is possible to read from the CD-Rom in a PC with aid of a serial cable. 
  You do require 'ghostlink' to pull it of. Thank god that the Falcon can at 
  least read GIF pics, play mods and can convert DBase, Clipart and textfiles! 
  Thanks to these possibilities you can get your hands on hundreds of CDs with 
  pics, texts and sound ! A medal for the guy that will code a parallel 
  communication program for use between a Falcon and a PC ! 

- Plans for the release of a CD-Rom for the Atari range of computers are 
  being made by The D.B.A. People who want more information or want to help 
  us out with suggestions and stuff are welcome to contact us. 


 FAKE CACHECHIPS:
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- There seems to be PC boards going around with placebo cache chips. Some 
  Korean firm has dumped lots of these fake chips on the German market. In 
  Germany, France and other countries have fake cache chips popped up, so be 
  warned ! The boards are normally (complete) sold for around 160 marks 
  (including the cache chip costing 30 marks) ! Conclusion the people who sell 
  these boards make 30 marks profit on each board ! If you sell thousand,  you 
  will wind up with a nice profit !

- The latest news from the computermarket is that fake Intel chips have been
  discovered with false inscriptions on them. Some Korean company is responsible
  for dumping this stuff on the European market. Countries like China have 
  factories that copy software and other things like music and ROM CD's. Those 
  copies get sold again for a only a fraction of the original price. This is part
  of the reason that the U.S. have warned China to stop these illegal activities
  or they will stop the import of certain Chinese goods.


 MODEMS:
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- Well the baud rate of modems have been increased... You can now buy a 
  modemcard for the PC that runs at 28.800 bits per second ! Well it's just  a 
  matter of time and they will appear also as external devices which means 
  they can be used with your Atari.
                                        ~DISKBOEM.BLK~


 STRANGE PACKING METHODS:               
 ------------------------

- Very strange rumours go about a firm in Deventer the Netherlands that have 
  come up with a new data compression technique. They claim that their new 
  technique can pack 45 floppy disks on 1 single floppy disk !! Quite amazing, 
  if not impossible ! Many computers users have their doubts about this 
  achievement. It's said that a complete encyclopedia of the painter Mondriaan 
  has been packed on 1 floppy disk ! If this compression method actually 
  exist's than you could pack 12 Gigabyte on 1 CD-Rom ! Well it's worth 
  dreaming about ...