************************************************************************* This conference transcript is the exclusive property of the ST Advantage on DELPHI. Permission to reprint is granted only if this notice is included and the transcript is left unchanged. To get your own DELPHI account and join in on the many activities sponsored by the ST Advantage and the Atari Advantage on DELPHI, please call 1-800-544-4005 and ask for Member Services. ************************************************************************* This is the transcript of a formal Conference held Tuesday, October 15th, 1991, with special guests, John Eidsvoog and Charles F. Johnson, the principals of CodeHead Software. .Gordie> I'd like to welcome the CodeHead software team to DELPHI tonight. If you don't know them, they are John Eidsvoog and Charles F. Johnson. Do either of you guys have any opening comments? .Johnny CodeHead> Charles has. .CodeHead GT> Sure, Gordie... We're excited to be offering some really amazing new software to the US and Canada, Avant Vector and Repro Studio from TradeiT in Germany, and Genus, the font editor for Calamus fonts. These are very high quality graphics tools, hence the new moniker, CodeHead GT. (Graphics Tools.) Oh yeah... Dot reminds me to say that Genus is from Canada, by a guy named Gregg Rodgers. Gregg works for an ad agency in Toronto, and programmed Genus in his spare time. It's quite an amazing amazing program, with lots of unique features designed to make font creation and editing as painless as possible. All of these programs are quite amazing, actually! :) The ST world is long overdue for these kinds of applications; we're glad to be able to play some part in bringing the ST into the modern computing world in the US and Canada. GA .Gordie> Charles, I've played with the demos, and I'm quite impressed, personally. KWAI> Um, do any of the programs use the math co-processor chip? .CodeHead GT> I believe Avant Vector uses the math coprocessor, but to be honest, I haven't asked that question of the Europeans. I'll find out and let you know. KWAI> Thanks, GT, GA. .CodeHead GT> It's quite fast, in any case, w/ or without the coprocessor. GA KAMIKAZE_ACE> What's next for Codehead? New and exciting things? Shareware? .Johnny CodeHead> We'll be releasing MIDI Spy soon. .CodeHead GT> We also have the new upgrade to MultiDesk, MultiDesk Deluxe. We've been getting rave reviews from the people who have it and we're having trouble making enough to keep up with demand. KAMIKAZE_ACE> What's it do, and does it work with MultiGEM? .CodeHead GT> Well, John knows more about MultiGem than I do.....( I think he struggled with installing it one day), so I'll let him talk for a second. GA .Johnny CodeHead> I've tested MultiGem with HotWire. The trick there is to make sure that HotWire doesn't run as a resident program, but rather as a MultiGem program. As for MultiDesk, I was unable to get it to work at first, but apparently there is a way to run ACCs as if they were programs. I haven't had enough time to pursue it further. Shall I expound on MIDI Spy? .Gordie> Sure! KAMIKAZE_ACE> Yes... I'm getting a synth soon... .CodeHead GT> (and he's got lots of free time. [nyuk nyuk]) .Johnny CodeHead> MIDI Spy is a MIDI recorder that runs as a program or an accessory. When run as a _resident_ ACC, it will record and play back completely in the background. This means that it will record anything you play, not matter what you are doing on your computer... disk, modem, printer, or any other activity will not deter it from its appointed task. You'll never lose another valuable idea. .CodeHead GT> Kinda like the US Post Office. In a way. .Dana> Only better! KAMIKAZE_ACE> So would I be able to record some stuff while my BBS is running, and then use it later? .Johnny CodeHead> It will load and save standard MIDI files so you can save your ideas and load them into your full-blown sequencer for further work. .CodeHead GT> We're talking _all_ formats of standard MIDI file, too. .Johnny CodeHead> You can also load MIDI Spy full of songs from other sources and have them playing in the background while you do other things. KWAI> I like That! .Johnny CodeHead> With "chain" play, it will continue playing until you tell it to stop with a pause between each song. Start/stop, tempo, and song number can all be controlled from hot keys... .CodeHead GT> And maybe best of all (if I might interrupt ) is.... .Johnny CodeHead> ...or MIDI command that you define. .CodeHead GT> ...that MIDI Spy comes with a little utility that can totally resolve a lot of the vector conflicts that plague MIDI programs and AUTO (TSR) utilities. GA .Johnny CodeHead> That's right...I've been unable to produce any MIDI overflow errors with MIDI Spy. Ga .baldy> OK, how come AV and RS are so expensive? ga .CodeHead GT> Baldy: have you priced comparable programs for the Mac or PC? Corel Draw, for example, has a list price of $795. .baldy> You're not in Macworld. We don't even have enough money to buy an AWESOME Mac! :) .CodeHead GT> The mid-level version of Avant Vector has a list price of $445 (until Dec 31st), and it actually does a _much_better_ job of vector-tracing than Corel Draw. This kind of programming sophistication doesn't come cheap. Someone has to work for years to be able to do it. And the simple fact is that Avant Vector _blows_Corel_Draw_out_of_the_water_ in the vector-tracing arena. So you're actually getting a great deal if you look at it that way. GA .Johnny CodeHead> Baldy, these are not programs that we've written. We must buy them from Germany. .baldy> Well, it's so much more than the DTP programs. .CodeHead GT> Also: because they really _are_ that good. .Gordie> If I might interject here. These programs are not 'hobbyist' programs. I think we're seeing the first steps towards the ST/TT being perceived as a serious business computer. Which means higher priced software. .Johnny CodeHead> These are professional programs for professional user...they are not toys. .baldy> Neither is CALAMUS SL and it doesn't cost $450. .Gordie> Even if some of the existing software _is_ quite good compared to other platforms' equivalent software, 'Business' equates 'low price' with 'non-serious'. .baldy> Thanks. ga KAMIKAZE_ACE> Yeah, it's a toy! It's a GREAT toy! Toys this good are WORTH $500... .Johnny CodeHead> What _is_ the price of Calamus SL? I wasn't aware that it's been released yet. .CodeHead GT> All I can say is that after two months of working with Avant Vector, it has more than proved its worth to me. DABRUMLEVE> I don't think it's been announced officially, but ISD has indicated it will be MUCH more than the regular 1.09N Calamus. .baldy> I can get the old calamus for $150. .CodeHead GT> Yes. In fact, Didot Professional (which is the only program that _really_ compares with AV) will have a retail price close to $1000, and that does not include plotting and sign-cutting abilities. Since we're discussing the price, I'd just like to mention that we've now managed to get TradeiT to agree to put the EPS load/save functions into the mid-priced version of Avant Vector! This means that the entire world of EPS graphics (and there are thousands of high quality graphics available from LOTS of sources) is now accessible for the Atari ST and TT. With Avant Vector, you can import files created with Adobe Illustrator and convert them to Calamus format, and vice versa. GA .O.W.J.III> Well, it might be a little off-topic, but have you considered writing an ACC version of a transfer-protocol driver (zmodem)... .Johnny CodeHead> Yes. .O.W.J.III> That would 'take over' if it saw the zrinit string so that those of us with older term programs could benefit from z-modem without having to run an external driver manually? GA .Johnny CodeHead> As a matter of fact, I've been looking into adding this into CommTool. .CodeHead GT> Hmmm, interesting idea. .O.W.J.III> Oh....yeah....make it run in the background, like MIDI spy... .Johnny CodeHead> I can't promise anything other than that I'm looking into it. ga .O.W.J.III> OK.....errrr..one more short ? if I may, what's the difference between Maxifile and Multifile? GA .CodeHead GT> Whew! That question would take about a week to answer. MaxiFile is basically just a much much MUCH more advanced version. .O.W.J.III> Well, I HAVE maxifile 3.0... ahhh, OK...thanks!!! GA .Johnny CodeHead> One thing we'd like to make clear is that MultiFile is NOT PD or Shareware. .CodeHead GT> Yes, we had someone approach us at WAACE and say he had the shareware version of MaxiFile. Erg. .Johnny CodeHead> We've found several instances of people thinking MultiFile is downloadable (without breaking the law). In case it's not known or clear, MultiFile is part of the CodeHead Utilities package. ga .Gordie> John and Charles, I think between you two and ISD, there is the beginning of a move to bring the ST/TT into the serious business market. I'm sure you're getting quite a bit of flack about the high prices of the new stuff (and I think Nathan will hear about the high prices of the Calamus packages). Would you address the need to make this kind of move? .CodeHead GT> Yeah, some people do kinda shut their eyes and break out in a cold sweat, Gordie. But hey, folks... time for a reality check! The skills it takes to produce the code in Avant Vector really _does_ take a lifetime of study to produce. This is almost a miniature artificial intelligence engine, for Pete's sake. And the EPS load/save ability essentially means that you've got a built-in Postscript interpreter as well. Frankly, the price is cheap, considering all AV is capable of doing. GA .Gordie> Is the tie-in with the Calamus format due to the fact that Calamus is a European program, like these two? ga .CodeHead GT> Gordie: DMC has made the Calamus CVG format available to other developers, as I understand it. .Gordie> I wonder if SoftLogik is working on an import module for PageStream 2, then. .CodeHead GT> Gordie: the EPS load/save ability means you can _directly_ import the files created with Avant Vector into Pagestream and view them onscreen. .Gordie> True. I hadn't remembered that little gem of information. Thanks. .Johnny CodeHead> Regarding CVG and EPS support; the Germans have about 600 Calamus service bureaus!! We had to tell them that there are only 4 in Canada and ONE in the US to convince them of the importance of adding EPS support to the mid-level version of Avant Vector. .Keith> Can you give a brief description of what AV is. (call me naive) .CodeHead GT> Keith: Avant Vector is a vector editing and auto-tracing program, similar to Adobe Illustrator/Streamline for the Macintosh or Corel Draw for the PC. It converts bit-image graphics (like IMG or Degas files) into vector graphics (mathematical descriptions of lines and curves)... which lets you scale the resulting images up or down, stretch them, skew them, rotate them, etc., without losing any resolution or getting that "jaggie" effect. GA .Keith> Will it work on all of the platforms? .Johnny CodeHead> All Atari machines. .CodeHead GT> Keith: since AV exports Encapsulated Postscript, the graphics can be easily ported to other platforms if you wish. .Keith> Thanks, ga .Gordie> How much memory is required for each of them, as a minimum? .CodeHead GT> Minimum requirement to run Avant Vector is 1 meg. .Baldy> I got the demo to work on my 520. .CodeHead GT> Repro Studio will run in 1 meg, but it really needs more to take advantage of some of its grey scale editing features. ga .Johnny CodeHead> I recently took a friend's IMG file (from his IBM), traced it in Avant Vector on the ST, and saved it as an EPS file. He's elated at the results when he loads it into Corel Draw. ga .CodeHead GT> It was really great to check out every vector-tracing program at Seybold and see it blow them all away. (It really did, and I can say that since I didn't write it.) .Johnny CodeHead> Repro Studio was shown there also. However, Repro Studio will not be available for another month or so. .Baldy> OK, do you think it's possible to use MultiGEM with MultiDesk to multitask more than 6 progs? .Johnny CodeHead> No, I don't. I'm extremely surprised that MultiGem works as well as it does... .Baldy> Why? .Johnny CodeHead> The ST was not designed to multi-task, or switch between programs. Any program that tries to force it to do this must break programming rules and therefore will have a lot of compatibility problems. .CodeHead GT> Yep, that's the bottom line. Either break the rules, or set up a new protocol, that software has to be rewritten to follow. GA .Johnny CodeHead> To the operating system, MultiDesk looks like just one ACC so MultiGem will not be able to force things otherwise. ga .Mark> Could you use MultiDesk to run a bunch of desk accs in one MultiGEM slot? ga .Johnny CodeHead> It's possible, but frankly my first experience with MultiGem was anything but inviting of further testing. .CodeHead GT> Well, we'll try again to get MultiDesk to work with MultiGEM. Our intial results have all failed. And by the way, just to present our perspective on this, MultiDesk Deluxe works with every major ST application, and most major TSRs and desk accessories. And it follows the ST programming rules as closely as possible. GA .Gordie> Ah, Charles, but which rules? .CodeHead GT> The meager, scanty rules that Atari has provided, anyway. :) .Johnny CodeHead> Don't you mean "Who rules?" .Gordie> hehehe .Mark> Oh, also, what's Repro Studio? (MY naive question...) .Sky> I have Utilities release #3. Is the update worth doing? $10? ga .Johnny CodeHead> Release 4 of the Utilities gives you a lot of extras in the CodeHead RAM disk as well as a few new programming tools, a revision of Art Gallery and a new program for handicapped people. There may be a few other additions but I can't remember. .Sky> $10 and original disk? Correct? ga .Johnny CodeHead> The new features in the RAM disk include having two disks, and you can now have a print spooler in the RAM disk, making it reset-proof. That's right, you can do a warm reset while printing and not lose a single character in the printout... and there's also a way to save your spooler data to disk so that you can print it later without having to re-run the program that created it. And yes, the update is $10 plus original disk. GA .Sky> Thank you, ga .Baldy> Is there such a thing as a reset proof disk cache? .Johnny CodeHead> I don't think so, but I don't understand what the advantage would be. .Baldy> Ok, what if you saved something to a cached disk and your system crashed? .Johnny CodeHead> The scenario is a good reason not to use a write cache. The ICD cache writes to the disk during the vertical blank so if your system crashes within a second after doing a write you'll have a problem. Someone asked a while back about Repro Studio... .Mark> Yes, what is it? I've never heard of it before... .Johnny CodeHead> Repro Studio is an image processing system with some very advanced and powerful features. We plan to offer it in two versions. The low-end version will be just the software and will list for $195. The high-end version includes a 256 gray-scale scanner and will list for $895. It makes a great companion for Avant Vector. Repro Studio allows you to scan images at up to 400 dpi and process them in many different ways (hand-scanner). We did a very interesting test at the Seybold show. We found a flyer from another company with a wood-block type of graphic on the front cover. We scanned it in two passes with Repro Studio, and put the two halves together quite handily. The seam was barely detectable. The image created was 350K! We traced this image with Avant Vector. It took about ten minutes, although most traces take under a minute. The resulting vector graphic required no editing whatsoever (well, we had to change one tiny fill pattern from black to white). The CVG vector file ended up to be 25K and when we printed it out it looked EXACTLY like the original...you couldn't tell the difference. We've been showing the two pages to people ever since and everyone is blown away. .Gordie> I assume we'll see something similar in Chicago? Maybe? .Mark> Cool... You should've given your copy back to the pamphlet's creator, just for cruelty. .Johnny CodeHead> Anyway, enough blowing . And yes, Gordie. GA .Lloyd> Not a question, just a statement. I think that MultiDesk Deluxe is the best thing you guys have ever come up with. It's so fast with the Quantum drive that you don't even notice the Acc's are not in memory!! .Johnny CodeHead> Thanks, Lloyd. And did you say that you hadn't received your Utilities upgrade? .Lloyd> Yes. .Johnny CodeHead> I'll get that out to you tomorrow, after some disciplinary action . GA .Lloyd> No problem...I haven't been in any position to miss it . GA .Johnny CodeHead> Yes, it's quite nice to have MultiDesk Deluxe load a list of dozens of ACCs at bootup without taking any time at all, and later have them loaded in on the fly so fast. GA .Lloyd> It's amazing how fast it is when you're running off of a fast hard drive!! .Gordie> John, how was the WAACE show for the CodeHeads? .Johnny CodeHead> Funny you should ask... .Gordie> .Johnny CodeHead> The WAACE show was a wonderful success, not only for us but also for most everyone we talked to (vendors). We brought 5 Avant Vectors to the show, thinking that we might sell one or two...we sold ten!! .Gordie> There's your airfare. .Johnny CodeHead> After the success of the Glendale show, we decided to bring 100 MultiDesk Deluxe packages. They were sold out on the first day! .Gordie> And your hotel accomodations. .Johnny CodeHead> We also ran out of just about everything else we brought... mostly updates... .Gordie> Any guesses why it was so successful? .Johnny CodeHead> Yes, I think there are many contributing factors: 1) The show was well promoted... 2) We had some wonderful, exciting new products: MDD and Avant Vector... 3) The dwindling availability of dealers may have been a factor... 4) Or the Atari market might be getting better. But... Most of our sales were updates, so I think it's pretty clear that the existing users are solidly behind the ST/TT but that there is not enough new blood in the market to get excited about. GA .Gordie> Do you have any contact with developers on other platforms, to know if the loyalty of the ST users is unique? .Johnny CodeHead> I don't really know developers on any other platform, but I think the other platforms are too large for them to get a sense of loyalty from their users. GA .Gordie> It has been said that software sales are a diminishing thing. The longer you have your machine, the less software you buy. But the ST users don't seem to follow that trend. Just an observation, but I think it's worth noting. ga .Johnny CodeHead> As long as we keep putting out either new software or new versions of our existing software, our users will be there for us... ...and those who pirate our wares are kept happy too (sigh). .Gordie> Like that's a consideration. .Johnny CodeHead> My wife would like to ask a question. .Gordie> Yes? .Johnny CodeHead> "When are you coming down stairs to pay attention to ME!!!???" .Gordie> HEHEHEHEHE .Baldy> :) .Mark> Is that a hint, John? |-) .Gordie> Okay, we'll let you go, then. Wouldn't do to ruin some marital bliss for this! .Johnny CodeHead> That's OK. I've been happily married for 12 years... 12 out of 21 ain't too bad. Just kidding. .Gordie> .Johnny CodeHead> We wouldn't have lasted 21 years if she weren't wonderfully understanding. .Gordie> Seriously, though, I'd like to thank you for being here tonight. Any closing comments? .Johnny CodeHead> I'd like to thank everyone for coming and I'd like to mention that our outlook HAS changed in the last two months... Some of you may recall that there was a statement in AIM magazine quoting us as saying that we have no plans for any new Atari software. As you can see, things have changed! .Baldy> hehe. .Johnny CodeHead> With Avant Vector, Repro Studio, Genus, MIDI Spy, and even some other things I can't mention yet, we're definitely planning some new things! Thank you all! GA .Gordie> This CO is officially over! ************************************************************************ The preceding was an editted version of the Conference. Some comments and line noise glitches were editted out to facilitate readibility. If you really want to know everything that was presented online, you'll just have to join DELPHI and attend the Conferences yourself! Thanks for taking an interest in our Conferences. ************************************************************************