Hi all!

A friend of mine, who is also an Amiga user and has a shop where he does vinyl cutting, 3D printing, laser engraving, etc. with modern computers and machinery, recently heard about an old 1993 Amiga software that does just that, vinyl cutting, but with an Amiga. The name of the program is SignEngine SM-100, made by Parallel Motion Graphics; distributed by LaserCraft Unlimited in Georgetown, Toronto; used for vinyl cutting and also sold by a company called VideoSpeak in Memphis, run by a guy called David E. Spence.

Also, some R. Shamms Mortier mentions it in a magazine and says he has it. This guy has many 3D-related books in Amazon, but I have not found a way to contact him.

In MacRumors I read the story of an Amiga user who made the Amiga, with that program, his livelihood, his source of income for a decade. I've already contacted him too, to see if he still has it. No answer yet…

I also discovered that it was used by an Amiga user named Jeff Ginn, production manager, to make vinyl for the TV series "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles”. Unfortunately, he died in 2016, so this path looks like a dead-end.

The thing is that he and I have been looking everywhere for the program, for the author, for the company that made it, for the company that distributed it, for Amiga user groups and people that informed about it, for companies that used it to make vinyl... without success.

Does anyone have it, or do you know who might have it, where it can be found?

It would be FANTASTIC not only to be able to preserve such a rare program, but also to keep using it, which is what my friend wants: to keep using his Amigas for his business, to keep them as productive computers, if possible: he want to be able to say "This vinyl sign was made with an Amiga!" or decorate Amiga parties with vinyls made with an Amiga

All in all, thanks in advance for your help.

Saluditos,

Ferrán.

_________________
Amiga user since 1988
AOS4 Betatester
Member of ATO Spain
A1 Cfg
OS4 SCR
A1200

@Ferry

Hahh! What a surprising post!

I have been working on vinyl cutting for more than 20 years.
My plotter has not touched by any computers but Amigas :)
Already cutted kms of vinyl with an A1200 and later a uA1 which
one is the current machine responsible for daily work.

I am using PageStream 4.1 for it with a self made plotter "driver".

And yes, I heard from SignEngine, but never had it.

I even found a mail I sent to the author in 1998!

On 1998.01.04.:
> Hello and wish a Happy New Year!
>
> I have a Roland Color CAMM vinyl cutter and I
> interested about your SignEngine software. Please send
> me information about its features and price.
>
> Thanks in advance!

And he replied. But unfortunately my first inbox mail in YAM
is dated from 2000.01.01.
Maybe there is somewhere I can found sometime.

As I remember it was very expensive, almost ten times of PageStream's price.
So I did not bothered it with my eastern european budget back then :)

Of course I would love to see any information about that software, the author,
anything related to!

Ahh, and please bring here your friend to discuss vinyl cutting on Amiga!

(Ohh, just checked that the domain of the email address is still alive.
It is an internet provider from Ontario.)

@Lazi

Hi, Lazy!

I already told my friend about this thread, maybe he will come and comment ;)

Thanks for sharing your experience with Amigas and vinyl cutting.

Regarding that custom-made driver, would you share it? It would be great to use Amigas for that.

As for the price of SignEngine, yes, looks like it costed around $600, not cheap, and given that it could be used only by people doing vinyl cutting, I'm sure it's not a very spread program, so it will be difficult to find.

Saluditos,

Ferrán.

Edit: Oh! I found it! You put it on Aminet! 1997!! Wow!

Last edited by Ferry on 24-Feb-2020 at 10:04 PM.

_________________
Amiga user since 1988
AOS4 Betatester
Member of ATO Spain
A1 Cfg
OS4 SCR
A1200

@Ferry

Quote:

Ferry wrote: @Lazi Hi, Lazy! I already told my friend about this thread, maybe he will come and comment ;) Thanks for sharing your experience with Amigas and vinyl cutting. Regarding that custom-made driver, would you share it? It would be great to use Amigas for that. As for the price of SignEngine, yes, looks like it costed around $600, not cheap, and given that it could be used only by people doing vinyl cutting, I'm sure it's not a very spread program, so it will be difficult to find. Saluditos, Ferrán. Edit: Oh! I found it! You put it on Aminet! 1997!! Wow!

When you wrote that you found it on Aminet, I first thought that you were still talking about the SignEngine software, but now I'm guessing that you meant the custom driver that Lazi wrote. Am I correct?

_________________
Amiga! The computer that inspired so many, to accomplish so much, but has ended up in the hands of . . . . . . . . . .

@amigadave Hehe, yes, I was talking about the driver by Lazi.

Saluditos,

Ferrán.

_________________
Amiga user since 1988
AOS4 Betatester
Member of ATO Spain
A1 Cfg
OS4 SCR
A1200

@Ferry

Funny, the reason I finally got a pc in the early 90s was because of my sign cutting needs. Bought my first roland cutter and could not do anything respectable with the Amiga. Before that it was all traditional sign painting for me.

Still run a business with cutters and printers but not going to let nostalgia make me crazy doing signs.

All that said, good luck. Would be interesting to see what you can do.

@Ferry
Double post

Last edited by Signman on 25-Feb-2020 at 03:07 AM.

@Signman Hehe, as you can see, some Amiga users made (and @Lazi still does) a living out of their Amigas for vinyl cutting, so it's a proof that it can be done

Saluditos,

Ferrán.

_________________
Amiga user since 1988
AOS4 Betatester
Member of ATO Spain
A1 Cfg
OS4 SCR
A1200

@Ferry

Can be done and should be done, two different things.
Modern pc software is far superior. Love my Amigas but have to be serious unless it is just a hobby.

@Lazi

Quote:

Lazi wrote: Ahh, and please bring here your friend to discuss vinyl cutting on Amiga!

Hmmm… He created his own account just yesterday ( @Keysoft ) but looks like he's not allowed to post just yet. Is there any restriction for new users? I don't remember, and I've been unable to find any info about it.

Saluditos,

Ferrán.

_________________
Amiga user since 1988
AOS4 Betatester
Member of ATO Spain
A1 Cfg
OS4 SCR
A1200

@Ferry

Nice story, can,t help but try out over at English Amiga Board under reguest for apps


EAB

Edit, see that your friend already has done a request

Last edited by Seaquest on 25-Feb-2020 at 06:30 PM.

@Lazi

Hello friends, I've been cutting vinyl for more than 20 years, I started with a pentium2 with flexisign 5.5, I have gone through 6.5, 7.6, 8, 8.5, 10, 10.5 and now I use flexisign 12. I always wanted to cut vinyl with my friend but I never found anything or I didn't think of trying hpgl since my knowledge was few. I currently own a camm1 cm500 of Rolan, a mutho 1440 and a GCC sign PAL. A couple of weeks ago I discovered that if there was a software for AMIGA, the SignEngine and we are trying together with my friend Ferry to locate this program to be able to enjoy it with our Friend and also to be able to preserve it. Another option I wanted to try was to use Fusion or shapeshifter and do it in macOs8, but I don't have any software or anything, I have my camm1 driver for adobe illustrator 10 for os9 but this version of illustrator is under PPC and not 68k. In the next few days I will try the driver for camm1 and I will try to use pagestream as you say, but I would like to find out how the signEngine was.

@Signman

I recall having this basic design I made up when I was about 15 in school. I drafted on paper in colour. I always wanted to reproduce it on computer with a 2d design program. I of course starting using Amiga programs like Draw Studio but soon got stuck. They could do the basics but were just not automated enough. For example I wanted to have all these parallel lines, but didn't want to draw them all by hand, I just wanted to tell it the dimensions and have it fill in the rest. I also needed to have these layers. But my ideas were just too complicated for it. Funny, I didn't think I had such a complicated idea, only being 15 or something at the time. I would have liked to use Amiga software, but never found any with an easy work flow. I expect software is so complicated now that it has caught up with my ideas. I'll test that theory on Linux which surely can do now what I wanted to do last century.

@Keysoft

Ouch, looks like one of the last possibilities, one of the last clues has also ended in a dead-end:

Following the clue of R. Shamms Mortier Ph.D., I saw he had a lot of computer-related books for sell in Amazon, but also some non-computer-related, like this one:

https://www.amazon.com/Company-Trees-Orbiting-Heart-Sacred/dp/1883650607

In the "About the author" text I saw he was a teacher in Burlington College, so I followed that path, only to find this obituary: Shamms Mortier died in 2008. R.I.P.

Finding this unknown Amiga program is being a truly challenging task…

Saluditos,

Ferrán.

_________________
Amiga user since 1988
AOS4 Betatester
Member of ATO Spain
A1 Cfg
OS4 SCR
A1200