What is really needed is an Amiga laptop ...

[macto]

I'm giving a public talk tonight and was thinking about how I was going to be strutting into the room with my PowerBook rather than an Amiga.  (You don't expect me to lug an A2000 on the subway, do you? ;-) )  This is an implicit form of advertising and laptop manufactuers know this as well as anyone else.  That is why manufacturers put so much effort into designing unique and aesthetic cases for their laptops and couldn't care less about the appearance of their desktops.  Apple is no different with their glowing logo.

So here I am stuck advertising for a product that I do not like (a PowerPC based Macintosh), rather than one I do like (a 680x0 based Macintosh or Amiga).

It's just a thought, and it's not as though presentation software would burden a 68k.  (I'm using an ancient Macintosh application to present the visuals.)

[Brian Hoskins]

This is a situation where WinUAE becomes a very useful tool indeed.

I use a real Amiga for normal every day stuff, but I've done some very good presentations to a group of Electronics Engineers on my laptop running Amiga Forever.  I developed and tested the presentation on my A1200, and then simply compiled a playable version which I copied over to the laptop.  This allows you the best of both worlds - you're still using AmigaOS and you're still able to use a laptop.

My presentations were announced as the best in the class.  Everyone else used PowerPoint, I think people were interested to see someone doing something a little bit different, besdies the fact that my Hollywood presentation kicked PowerPoint ass of course ;-)

The laptop is also fantasic for doing work away from home.  I was finding it a problem that I used to do all my assignments on my Amiga because it meant that I was only able to do work at home.  It was difficult to get any work done during actual college time, because any work done on the Windows machines there would have to be repeated in my favourite apps on the Amiga when I got home.
The laptop solved these issues, I just did all my work in the same applications under AmigaForever when I was away from home, and then I was able to take that work home to my real Amiga and continue with it.

Try Amiga Forever for the laptop - you wont regret it.  I'm not sure what the MAC version is like though...

Brian

[macto]

Why use Amiga Forever when I have real Amigas?  Yeah, I know, so that I can have a laptop.  For some reason, I've never had much luck with emulators.  When I do, they seem to run slow and just don't feel the same (I know that is subjective).  But I'm happy to hear that you have had some luck.

As for PowerPoint, I wonder how many people realise how unnecessary it is.  My talk is being given on a prehistoric word processor.  I use a full screen preview mode for the presentation proper.  Sure, I loose transition effects but I don't care about those seeming as I view it as style over substance (yeah, I know opinions will differ).  From the looks of it, I can even embed audio and video so multimedia content is okay.  :-D  Some people use Adobe Acrobat (or Preview on the Mac) to the same end.  But most people are convinced PowerPoint is the only way to go ...

[Brian Hoskins]

You're right that it doesn't quite feel the same (although it gets close), but you're wrong about the speed.  Amiga Forever on my 1.8Ghz Laptop is faster than my real Amiga, which runs on a top of the range BlizzardPPC 68060@64, 603e@256!

As I say, I use a real Amiga when I'm at home, Amiga Forever is merely a tool to allow me to do work in Amiga applications when I'm away from home.  Otherwise, the only option would be to do them in PC applications all the way, and since I feel much less creative when sitting at a Windows environment, Amiga Forever comes in handy.

As for presentations, PowerPoint IS good - it allows you to mix a whole host of multimedia into one presentation, allowing you to demonstrate and present whatever you wish.  Hollywood is based around the same thing.  In some ways the version I used to do my presentation was nowhere near as advanced as PowerPoint.  In other ways it was far more advanced than PowerPoint, it's hard to explain.  At the time, Hollywood had a text only interface - you literally had to program your own presentation.
At first I saw this as a major downfall and almost gave up on Hollywood completely before I'd even given it a chance.  Then I saw a tutorial in "Total Amiga Magazine" and decided to give it a go.  The disadvantages of a text based interface are clear but what is not so clear are it's advantages - which I only found out afterwards.

With a text based interface the possibilities are seemingly endless.  You're not limited or tied to anything, your presentation can be whatever you make it.  With PowerPoint, if you've seen a few presentations you've seen them all.  Everything looks the same, nobody is able to do anything new and as such, it all begins to look a little bland.  That gave me an advantage, because with Hollywood I was able to deliver a whole new presentation experience! A completely new look, new effects and transitions, and the presentation ran exactly as I intended it to, it wasn't binded to PowerPoint's same old interface.
The downside is time.  A PowerPoint presentation can be knocked up in minutes, but since I had to literally program mine, it took hours of work.  But when your presentation is regarded as the best of the whole bunch, that extra work is all worthwhile I think.  Especially when the Windows machine being used for the PowerPoint presentations crashed and refused to reboot properly! The whole presentation was cancelled but I was able to go on because mine was done under AmigaOS!

These days Hollywood has a graphical interface for the creation of presentations - I'm still very eager to try that out.

So yeah, Amiga Forever can be an excellent tool.  You don't have to desert the Amiga platform to appreciate it's use as a tool.  I use my version as a tool, but I still come back to my real Amiga when I'm at home!

Brian

[Viking]

What a good thread!
Tell me, Win stands for Windows, but what means the letters UAE?

[leirbag28]

@macto

 You know, you could just use an A600 with a Playstation LCD to make it portable and run SCALA or Elan Performer for your presentations, or even an A1200 wich will make your SCALA presentaions excellent.


 I don't know how many times I need to say this but SCALA MM300 and MM400 are THEE #1 applications on the Amiga! period! You have no idea how great SCALA is......and just when you think you know.......you discover a whole new host of things you can do with it.

Also for those who arent aware.......... MediaPoint is now free and downloadable at computercity website.  I have not had much time to test it, but it claims to rival SCALA.

 so far I find it confusing.

ahhh and last but not least. Macto........you can also use Broadcast Titler 2.0 on an A600 which runs just excellent on 3mb............its a great Character generator that can be used for presentations........if you want music though........you have to run a mod first in Workbench before starting Broadcast Titler....but with SCALA, you can add it all and even use a joystick to flip to the next page or next item on a page.

[cecilia]

but what means the letters UAE

Universal Amiga Emulation is what i recall.

when I first saw amithlon i realized amiga could really be portable. i was too late to get or make one, but it set me on the idea and eventually i got my laptop and installed WinUAE on it. it's great!!!

one of these days i'll hopefully be able to afford hollywood.

portable amiga is a good thing!

[tormedhammaren]

but what means the letters UAE?

One of the really big questions, that not even the UAE gurus knows the answer to.

It seems to me that it has only had one official meaning: "The Unusable Amiga Emulator" which the first versions were called.
This was simply because the first release couldn't even boot. When it later booted, some creative soul named it "The Usable
Amiga Emulator".

Meanings I've found searching the web (excluding "The United Arab Emirates"):
The Useless Amiga Emulator (11 google hits)
The Usable Amiga Emulator (26 google hits)
The Unusable Amiga Emulator (103 google hits)
The Universal Amiga Emulator (114 google hits)
The Ultimate Amiga Emulator (351 google hits)
The Ubiquitous Amiga Emulator (435 google hits)
The UNIX Amiga Emulator (strongest, 714 hits)

Looks like "The UNIX Amiga Emulator" is the winner. FDict and Wikipedia support this meaning too. WinUAE would then be
"The Windows UNIX Amiga Emulator" which is pretty cool.

UAE might however be a recursive acronym. Asking what UAE stands for might be the same as asking what GNU stands for.
GNU means "GNU's Not Unix", UAE might just stand for "UAE Amiga Emulator". I think this might be the case, because the title
 on the UAE website is simply "UAE - The UAE Amiga Emulator". "UAE Amiga Emulator" gives 2660 google hits, "The UAE
Amiga Emulator" gives 642 hits.

On my lips, it will always be "The UNIX Amiga Emulator". Linux, linux, linux! :-)

[Holley]

BTTT, you could always get a generic off-white PC laptop, remove any logos and spray on a boing ball on the lid ... then have it boot into UAE on startup :-?

Work won't let me do that with my laptop :-(

[macto]

LOL!  Given that my PowerBook is a 12" job, I think an A600 with an external display would be a step backwards in portability.  Granted, I would probably have a better keyboard.

On emulator performance, the processor is only a GHz, the machine is in need of RAM, and I doubt that UAE has been optimised for PowerPC processors.  But I'll give it another try and see what happens.

I'm beginning to think that the only way I'll get my ideal computer is to emulate it, because modern stuff is way too bloated for my tastes but modern hardware is nicer in many respects.

[weirdami]

I'm pretty sure the 'u' is for 'ultimate'. Wikipedia is written by anyone who has the initiative to click "edit this page", so unless someone corrects an error (or vandalism) it remains there. If it's important, wikipedia may not be the best source because I find things wrong there often. (Especially grammar'n'junk. :-))

[amigau]

I've tried amithlon on a few laptops but the video driver (given that laptops have their own unique schemes vs. desktops) usually prevents it from working.  AmigaForever (the commercial version of WinUAE) has worked great for me in the past, though.

I guess the key is finding the applications you always use that don't depend on the actual amiga hardware.  For instance, Scala, great as it is, doesn't work on AF, UAE, etc. because it REQUIRES the custom hardware.  I've tried even MM300 from a CU Amiga version that doesn't have a dongle and this is still the case.

On the other hand, Cinema4D, TVPaint, etc. all work pretty good.  DPaint = no, but PPaint = yes, etc.

The other thing I've noticed in using Paint programs generally however, is that sometimes there's an issue with mouse speed or 'delay' in painting the lines vs. your movement of the mouse, which effectively prevents you from using it - so you have to tweak the Input settings sometimes.....

kevin orme
amiga university
www.amigau.com

[tormedhammaren]

I'm pretty sure the 'u' is for 'ultimate'. Wikipedia is written by anyone who has the initiative to click "edit this page", so unless someone corrects an error (or vandalism) it remains there. If it's important, wikipedia may not be the best source because I find things wrong there often. (Especially grammar'n'junk. )

Well, BBC has narrowed the Amiga down in this page - The Commodore Amiga.

This is what they write about UAE:

9 There is no general concensus as to what UAE stands for, except that we know it's an Amiga Emulator. Linux users claim it to be the Unix Amiga Emulator. The author says that during most of the program's development it didn't work, so he christened it the Unusable Amiga Emulator. Anyone who uses it for MS-DOS or Workbench systems says that it's the Universal Amiga Emulator.

[AmigaFreak]

Ive been running MacUAE on my Laptop, and Its like an Amiga.. well sorta. :-)

[macto]

I'm trying to get the Unix version running under Mac OS X, seeming as MacUAE seems to have been abandoned in 1998.  It is working with my A2000 ROM and disk images of Workbench 2.04, but I have been unable to mount a local directory (ie. so I can use my OS 3.9 CD, to see what it looks like in something more than 16 colours ;-) ).  It would also be nice to have more disk space in 2.04.