By Ashley Seabrook SOUNDPOOL http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/soundpool/ Soundpool are a German company developing a wide range of Atari-compatible music software and hardware. Their products include direct-to-disk recording software and utilities, CD-ROM burning software, MIDI software, mastering hardware and direct-to-disk recording interfaces and are mainly for the Falcon030, although there is something for everyone here. The Soundpool WWW home page is graphically very sparse - they don't even have a logo - but is clearly laid out and easily navigated. Many of the pages are in their native German, but possibly the most important part - the product information pages - are also avaliable in English and Spanish. Here all Soundpool's products are comprehensively detailed with full specifications and screenshots where applicable. If you are into music making on your Atari, particularly if you own a high-end machine, these pages are well worth a closer look. MEDUSA COMPUTER SYSTEMS http://www.ee.ethz.ch/~caschwan/medusa.html The Swiss-based company Medusa Computer Systems produce the incredibly powerful 68040/68060-based Medusa and Hades TT030 clones, which are amongst the fastest TOS-based computers ever! Each of the models has full details and specifications, plus a photograph. In addition to this is a downloads page with applicable software and utilities, and also links to developers of add-ons for the Hades and Medusa. The site contains quite a bit of information and is nicely presented with not too many graphics slowing things down. Definitely a site to visit if you are feeling rich or just want to see how powerful a TOS computer can get. Just remember a bucket to collect the drool in! VEGARD HOFSØY http://home.sn.no/~veg/ Vegard Hofsøy is a Norwegian software developer producing the commercial Face Value GEM interface generator for GFA Basic and the shareware Munch mono art program. His WWW page is simply but attractively laid out with a well designed and functional graphical interface. There are pages on both Face Value and Munch, with comprehensive details and some screenshots. Additionally there is a GFA Basic page with hints and tips on which utilities and patches to get hold of for GFA Basic programming, and a links page. Overall, the pages are well put together, and anyone with an interest in Vegard's acclaimed software generally, or GFA Basic programming in particular, would enjoy a visit here. THE ATARI CONNECTION http://www.cedep.com/~gstamant/atari/atanet_e.htm This is a Canadian site based in Montreal and intended as a staring point for Atarians wanting to connect their machines to the internet. The pages come in two languages, their native French-Canadian and also English. The English page is graphically very sparse - the logo only appears on the French page - but it is clearly and simply laid out, listing the different means of getting an Atari connected to the 'net. Each method - STiK, Oasis 2, NOS, MiNT+MiNTNet, Linux/m68k and communications software - has a brief but clear description, mention of its pros and cons and links to relevant pages elsewhere for further information, and a summary table compares all methods directly. The French pages seem more up to date and in addition contain information on STinG, GlueSTiK and WenSuite. The pages also have brief notes on recommended hardware, relevant software patches and service providers plus links to other relevant information on the internet. All in all a simple and concise introduction to launching your Atari into cyberspace. DEJANEWS http://www.dejanews.com/ DejaNews is not an Atari-specific site, but well worth a look for all online Atarians. Put simply, it provides free WWW access to the Usenet and so is of use to Atarians who have access to the WWW but otherwise not to the Usenet, or whose Usenet feed is perhaps incomplete or slow. DejaNews allows posting to as well as retrieving postings from thousands of newsgroups, and provides powerful searching facilities to find the subjects you are interested in. DejaNews also has plenty of introductory information on using its services and the Usenet in general. Additionally, and perhaps to many this will be the most useful aspect, it keeps a database of all Usenet articles stretching back to March 1995 with any article from that database able to be called up using a search engine. With hundreds of postings a week during that time to the various Atari related newsgroups this provides a wealth of information for all online Atarians.
| Ashley Seabrook is also the webmaster of the excellent Elysium site. Just point your browser at http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/aseabrook/ and take a look!