Conference hydra::amiga_v1

    I been receiving it since its beginning.  I like the publication and
    the programs on the disks are fairly useful.  It gives (as its name
    implies) much more technically detailed information than AmigaWorld and
    I find it very informative.  But my background is composed of more than
    20 years of experience in electronics and machine programming.  Others
    might not find it as interesting.  Sort of like Scientific American.
    
    Tony

    
    Thanks Tony, perhaps I'll give it a shot.
    
    Frank
    

I bought the first copy, and looked into the second two. At least two of
the disks were writeoffs as far as I was concerned, and the rest of the
magazine wasn't sufficiently interesting to justify the cost associated with
the disks. If the disks seem to be a win to you, it's probably a good deal.
However...

Commodore has a very technical newsletter/magazine called "AmigaMail" that
you can subscribe to. It carries no advertising, so it's expensive - but
it still costs less than than the AW Tech Journal.

On the minus side:

	It's a CBM product, and doesn't discuss anything except what's
	available from CBM, so you don't get product reviews and language
	tutorials.

	No disk full of usefull utilities.

	It's thinner than the AW Tech Journal.

	Tends to talk about things only available to developers.

On the plus side:

	It's about the only place to get information on what they discuss,
	and certainly the earliest outside of the Amiga Developers
	Conferences. BOOPSI, GadTools, etc. have been covered in the past.

	It's coordinated with itself, and the rest of the documentation
	from CBM. The pages are number for insertion into a single volume
	containing all the issues, seperated by topic (not issue), with
	an updated index in each issue. The 1.x issues are available as a
	seperate volume.

	No disk full of useless utilities :-).

AmigaMail really is targeted to developers, and tends to be even more
technical than what I've seen of AWTJ. If I weren't getting AmigaMail
(it's included in the developer package), I might have subscribed to
AWTJ. But AWTJ is usefull anyway - if it had been available without
the disk (and at a correspondingly lowered price), I would have subscribed
to it even though I get AmigaMail.

	<mike

Yes, it is exactly what you are looking for
No, it contains nothing of interest to you
Maybe, it might satisfy your needs or interest

Perhaps you would like the answer "I wouldn't bother, try the Ladies Home
Journal instead".

I've been spending a LOT of time over the past six months trying to learn
about Amiga stuff, and I have a lot of things to learn and questions to answer:
	will commodore amiga go the way of the apple II, the Atari ST, etc
	what are my hardware options
	what does half assed ram mean
	what programming language should I buy
	which compiler should I buy
	what `productivity' software should I buy
	what educational software should I buy
	how do you develop educational software
	what are the best tools and approaches to building educational software
I'd say that the absolute best buy is Amiga Shopper, a british publication.
At 4 or 5 bucks (System Eyes can't seem to get the computer and price tag
straight, to my benefit...) it is a real bargain.  Amiga User probably comes
next and it includes a disk, and that is only $10.  Another british publication,
it is heavy on `serious' software and hardware stuff.  If you lean toward
games/entertainment, then Amiga Format, mixes in a lot of game reviews and
includes game demos along with a lot of information on tools to develop games
and also stuff to do serious work.  The latest Amiga Format includes a demo
version of Deluxe Paint IV and a review of the AMOS compiler and AMOS 3D along
with an article point out that AMOS is a great tool for edu and games, but that
doesn't mean that you don't need to be creative.  A recent issue included a
demo of GODS.  And they include PD software as well, for example both Amiga
User and Amiga Format have included the same copy of Missle Command recently.

On the other hand, Amiga Tech Journal does have people from Commodore and other
commercial developers submitting technical articles. And they have only put
out three issues so far, so it will take a while before they build up a good
supply of quality technical material.  The same goes for AC/whatsitsname.
My question is `what is their page budget for the next two years?'.  Are they
planning to double the number of pages in the next two years (keeping the
amount of advertising the same...)?  If yes, then they will have to be as
diverse as the british mags above as far as technical information, although
it would presumably be more `formal' in tone; after all it is a technical
journal.;-)  I will say that the technical quality is better than almost all
US computer mags except for say Dr Dobbs or Circuit Cellar.

Oh, I just remembered a plus for Amiga Tech Journal.  It is timely given the
thread (flame) on SCSI.  Either the first or third issue talks about the SCSI
spec and includes a half page history of SCSI.

RE: .4

	I totally agree about Amiga Shopper, here (UK) it costs just 99p, and
	is by far the most informative & interesting mag for news and hardware
	reviews (which are both extensive, complete & down to earth). There
	are no game reviews, no I-think-A-Shopper-is-mega! type letters from
	12-year olds and the magazine also caters for coders too.

	If you can, get it! You won't be sorry if you're serious about the
	Amiga.

								- JIM CAD*

re .5

Too true. Just about to send off my subscription before they put the price up

:^)

Greg

Ps they even responded to some mail I sent!!

    And they are the last Amiga Magazine in the UK (as far as I know) that
    DON't put a disk on their cover !! (No stupid stuff ;-))
    
    Even the computer express has now a disk ! Where are we headding to �
    
    							Erik
    

re "thread (flame):"

Y'know, these occur often enough they need their own term, donchathink?

A little free association yielded:


thread (flame) -> flaming thread -> fuse


I sorta like it- seems apropos, especially since fuses often lead to explosions,
but sometimes just sputter out.

Whaddya think?

Article 17673 of comp.sys.amiga.hardware:
From: [email protected] (Daniel Barrett)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer,comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Subject: AmigaWorld Tech Journal is being discontinued
Date: 27 Jan 92 17:32:20 GMT
Reply-To: [email protected] (Daniel Barrett)
Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Lines: 23


	I just got off the telephone with the IDG Communications, the
publishers of Amigaworld Tech Journal.  I had called up to renew my
subscription, but it turns out that the magazine is being discontinued!  The
last issue will be March/April 1992, and it will contain a letter explaining
the bad news.  (I renewed my subscription for $9.95 to get this issue.)

	The woman on the phone did not have any information why the
magazine is being discontinued.  She did say that subscribers would get
their money back, or be offered to transfer their subscriptions to
AmigaWorld.  She also said that it is common knowledge at IDG that a lot
of readers really like the magazine.

	I, for one, am very upset by this.  AmigaWorld Tech Journal is an
*excellent* magazine.  Does anybody have any more information on this?  I
know that many AWTJ authors read this newsgroup.

                                                        Dan

 //////////////////////////////////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
| Dan Barrett -- Dept of Computer Science, Lederle Graduate Research Center |
| University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA  01003  --  [email protected] |
 \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/////////////////////////////////////

    I suspect if there were more Amiga techies and fewer game-players-only
    magazines such as AMJ would be able to survive.  This is the second
    Amiga technical magazine to fold (the first being the Amiga
    Transactor).  It's a shame since there really isn't any other source of
    decent information on the internals of the Ami.
    
    Ken
    

    Re: .10 (Ken)
    >I suspect if there were more Amiga techies and fewer game-players-only
    >magazines such as AMJ would be able to survive.
    
    Personally, I am a very interested Amiga techie but I dont have the
    ways and means to justify purchasing $15 magazines.  Things might have
    been different if they offered a non-disk version with just the info.
    This is, of course, my humble opinion.
    
    George
    

re .10

The best source of internal information is "Amiga Mail", published by CBM.
Call CATS at +1 215 431 9180 for information. It's published every other
month, is kinda thin, and expensive ($45/year, I believe). However, every
issue has had something relevant to what I was doing when it arrived, and
all of them are things you probably want to keep around for reference. In
recognition of this, the thing is loose leaf, punched for a 3-hole binder,
page numbered so that similar articles can be grouped together in the binder,
and each issue has a new table of contents for said binder.

re .11

I agree. AWTJ didn't seem like a sufficient addition to current sources
(including AmigaMail) to be worth $15. I inserted the disk for the one version
I did buy exactly once, and never again. A non-disk version for $10 would
have been a different prospect.

	<mike