A-Squared Live! Frame Grabbers

[Metalguy66]

Does anyone own an A-Squared Live! Frame Grabber?

Near as I can tell, there were three versions of this hardware made. The first was a sidecar for the A1000, and later, A500 and A2000(internal) versions were made and packaged with Elan's Invision Plus software.

I am looking for the original Live! software/installation disks, as well as the Elan Invision Plus software disks that came with this hardware.

Also, any third-party or shareware applications that support this hardware and/or programming information would be very useful.

Thanks.

[LoadWB]

I have one which came from an old Bodega Bay I acquired many years ago.  No installation disks, unfortunately, and the hard drive was bad, so no software, period.

As far as the board version goes, BBoAH lists v3 and v6 cards, of which the v3 are pics of mine.

Good luck on your hunt.  Any results are surely appreciated here.

[SACC-guy]

I have the Live1000 and two Live2000 with the install software. I got the Live2000 used and had to hunt down the install software, but I did find it.
I also had the Live500, but I gave it away after I gave my 500 up.

I used the Mandala software as an interface for dance with special needs children. It was great!

Also used the very vivid interactor program.
I bought the Invision software as well.

But...I'm not willing to sell these items.
But...how else can I help?

Michael

[Metalguy66]

You could .dms the disks for us. We already have the harware. We are just looking for the software..

I've got the A2000 card, and the A500 side-car.
In fact, Ive even got the manuals (A-squared Live and Invision Plus), boxes, quick reference cards, registration cards, etc... But the disks are long gone... Pretty sure I had them at one time, but I got rid of about 6,000 floppies a while back.. heh. because I THOUGHT that they were all included in a massive DVD archive I recieved from a friend..

Lesson: No matter how much you get accused of being a "packrat," you should hold on to your stuff.. because the minute you get rid of something, you'll need it again..

[beller]

Boy, isn't that the truth!  I moved in '89 and lost a ton of C64 software and, in the late '90s, Amiga hardware/software and CDTV stuff!  I've learned my lesson!

Hey SacGuy, one of those ALive 2000 boards may have been mine!  I don't recall many other SACC members having one. Not sure how many of those Put's ordered!

Regarding Elan,  you can find Daniel Kaye at his new job with Rocketlife.  He and Digital Creations/Play developer Randy Jongens both are involved in the company.

Bob

[SACC-guy]

@beller

Well, Bob, I bought the used ALive2000 from Chris Riffey.
If it was yours....why didn't you include the install disk?
I bugged poor Chris for weeks for the original disk.

After I found the Very Vivid Mandala software I really started using the Live boards. Later finding the Elan software.

For me the issue was just wishing, that everything was together in one package.

Michael

[SACC-guy]

@metalguy66,

I'm sorry, but I don't know dms...
I still couldn't un-lha things if I didn't have opus. (sigh)

Michael

[beller]

SACC-guy wrote:
@beller

Well, Bob, I bought the used ALive2000 from Chris Riffey.
If it was yours....why didn't you include the install disk?
I bugged poor Chris for weeks for the original disk.

Michael

Its been sooo long ago I haven't a clue who I sold it to.  I always try to include everything I've got, and especially install disks.  

You ended up with a better alternative..the original software was fairly useless except for getting a WOW when you demo'd it.

Bob

[magnetic]

SACC Guy
Reviving this old thread. Do you still have the Mandala software for Amiga Live! boards? I have a couple of them and want to get a system up. Please let me know thanks.

[hardlink]

SACC Guy
Reviving this old thread. Do you still have the Mandala software for Amiga Live! boards? I have a couple of them and want to get a system up. Please let me know thanks.

I have the Mandala software, legal disks even, which I bought years ago from someone at college in Pennsylvania one spring. I didn't install it right away, but when I did, I found out it needed a hardware dongle like Scala! Which, of course, was not sent with the disks. By this time, he had gone home/graduated, and I was never able to track him back down.

I heard that there were dongle-less versions, but I've never been able to track one down - or a dongle. Anybody know what happened to Vivid Group?

[magnetic]

Hardlink

That is interesting. Would you be willing to make copies of the disks for me. I think you should .dms them for all of us. Vivid Group is now defunct AFAIK. I recently researched them and their site is down (now its pron) I dont think they are around anymore but we can still look. Maybe one of the original programmers is still around...

[hardlink]

Hardlink

That is interesting. Would you be willing to make copies of the disks for me. I think you should .dms them for all of us. Vivid Group is now defunct AFAIK...Maybe one of the original programmers is still around...

I seem to have boxes of Amiga floppies almost to the ceiling, so it may take awhile to find. Since the program is unusable without the dongle, it's mainly of historical interest ...

Calum Tsang, who used to be maintainer of the Amiga 3000 Hardware Technical Notes, worked at Vivid Group, although not a programmer. He is very active on the web now and apparently works for RIM; perhaps someone with a little time could contact him and see if he knows what happened to the tech people (who knows, maybe he still works with them:).



Woha! It's coming back to me now - there was something better than Mandala. From the web page:

http://philosborn.joeuser.com/article/15624

"Meanwhile, one-man-show Tensor Productions, created a Mandala clone for the Amiga and then for the PC, but preserving all the programmability and other functionality of the Amiga version, unlike Mandala, and sold it at a tiny fraction of what Vivid was asking for a vastly inferior system. However, Joe Shen (Tensor) also feared patent suits, and so he never tried to seriously market his product. Dean Friedman  ended up as Joe's only customer,* and finally he put the Amiga version of his CyberScape out there for anyone to use freely, and took the PC version off the market altogether."

And it's STILL available, and he open-sourced the source code! I believe just before he quit developing it, he added support for VLab frame grabbers, which are much easier to get than Live! boards. Taa Daa:

http://www.inter-actor.com/software.htm

Okay everybody, get hacking!

[magnetic]

hardlink

Yeah, i'm familar with Calum from his a3000 site. If you have his email i'll write him. I have an .adf of mandala from some euro site. Maybe its a dongless version? I can send that to you if you send me copies of your disks!

[Gulliver]

A link with all that software, is here for your enjoyment:

http://www.mediafire.com/?emcb7qd4d7edl

Have fun!

[hardlink]

I just looked at the source code for CyberScape, and this version does not include the VLab support. Should not be that hard to add if the programming Vlab info is available. However, there is support for a Mattell Powerglove!

BTW, there is a rumor that Dale Luck has been playing around with a Live! board very recently. Now he could write some good software if he wanted to! Since he and RJ invented/wrote the original Boing Ball, how about making it respond to video