p R OJ! 9 77026!
ISSUE 208 JUNE 1999
£4.20
in the world
f Inside RISCOS Ltd
PD games return
en masse
The best of
Acorn clip-art
REMOVABLE DRIVES
- free media with all drives
CASTLE TECHNOLOGY
FOR ALL YOUR ACORN HARDWARE & PERIPHERALS
INTERFACES
25% off when bought with drive or scanner etc
CT’s Storm SCSI interface offers unbeatable ^
performance. Using ISMB/s SCSI components jjf *
and our ultra-reliable SCSI FS, Storm’s a t * ■$.
guaranteed winner. Mtew/
A30x0 IDE interface kit - 2.5" hard drive
A3020 fixing kit - 2.5" hard drive
A3/400 IDE interface for 2.5" & 3.5" h.d.
Storm8 SCSI2 interface - MOxO M000
Storml6 SCSI2 i/f - A300/A400 A5/7000
StormDMA32 SCSI2 i/f RPC
Storml6 SCSI2/IOBaseT Ethernet i/f
Storml6 SCSI2/IOBaseT&2 Ethernet i/f
HARD DRIVES
(BARE)
4GB XTRA 3.5" SCSI
8GB XTRA 3.5" SCSI
18GB XTRA 3.5" SCSI
Ex VAT Inc VAT
£60
£88 £103.40
£96
£112.80
£128 £150.^0
£148
£1/3.90
for flexible, expandable storage, the infinite
capacity of a removable drive is perfect. All
drives are the latest spec, and internal versions
can be fitted into the CT Combo case. Data
transfer rate up to 8.8MB/sec (Nomai).
XTRA HARD DRIVES
Guaranteed 4MB+/sec read transfer rate with
Castle Storm DMA32 SCSI card
£179 £210.33
£329 £386.58
£599 £203.83
VIDEO HARD DRIVES
Fastest on market - externally boxed and ideal for
Video use - Storm DMA32 card recommended
I 4GB Video SCSI external
I 9GB Video SCSI external
18GB Video SCSI external
£349 £410.08
£599 £203.83
£899 £1056.33
£196 £23030
170MB A3000/A30I0 interface included
£95
£111.63
170MB A3020 fitting kit included
£59
£69.33
170MB A300/A400 interface included
£100
£117.50
500MB A3000/A30I0 interface included
£128
£150.40
500MB A3020 fitting kit included
£89
£104.58
500MB A300/A400 interface included
£134
£157.45
210MB 3.5" IDE for A4000 &A5000
£45
£52.88
500MB 3.5" IDE for A4000 & A5000
£59
£69.33
1.2GB 3.5" IDE for RiscPC & A7000/+
£69
£81.08
2GB 3.5" IDE for RiscPC & A7000/4-
£80
£94.00
4GB 3.5" IDE for RiscPC & A7000/-F
£99
£116.33
100MB 3.5" SCSI
£39
£45.83
500MB 3.5" SCSI
£65
£76.38
2GB 3.5" SCSI
£115
£135.13
4GB 3.5" SCSI
£149
£175.08
6GB 3.5" SCSI
£239
£280.83
EXTERNAL SCSI CASES
for hard drives CD drives & removeable drives
FREE headphones and data cable worth over £20
The unique Combo Case • takes any
two SCSI devices & gets rid of all those
.> cables, mains leads etc. Accepts any
: 5.25 unit.
Acorn M E U 2x CD + free 5.25" slot
£69
£81.08
Case for single SCSI device
£40
£47.00
Combo case for 2 SCSI devices
£60
£70.50
CD ROM DRIVES
inc FREE driver software & fixing kit worth £29
Castle Technology’s range of CD ROM
drives are chosen for their reliability,
ease of use and robustness. They have
fast access times, and include driver
software. They are particularly suitable
for multimedia applications.
;] 4x speed SCSI CD ROM drive
8x speed SCSI CD ROM drive
32x speed SCSI CD ROM drive
1 24x speed IDE CD ROM drive
j 32x speed IDE CD ROM drive
| IDE CD driver for Rise PC & A7000
j 6x4x2 CD int ReWriter inc iCDBurn
| 6x4x2 Ext CD ReWriter inc ICDBurn
j 16x4x4 CD int ReWriter inc ICDBurn
! 16x4x4 Ext CD ReWriter inc ICDBurn
| CD ROM fixing kit (data & audio cable)
CD TOWERS
7 SCSI CD towers with lockable doors
Add the Castle Technology CD Tower to your
network and have simultaneous access to
between 7 & 28 CD-ROMs. Enables CD
resource discs to remain locked and
untouched but accessible from all over the
network. Up to 4 towers can be connected
to one computer, fully compatible with
Access CD network software.
£29
£34.08
£34
£39.95
£69
£81.08
£45
£52.88
£49
£57.58
£25
£29.38
£285
£334.88
£335
£393.63
£349
£410.08
£399
£468.83
£4
£4.70
ZIP drive internal 100MB SCSI
£99
£116.33
ZIP drive external 100MB SCSI
£99
£116.33
ZIP drive external parallel not A300 etc
£109
£128.08
Iomega Parallel ZIP driver (100MB)
£25
£29.38
MaxIT internal 500MB SCSI drive
£129
£151.58
JAZIGB internal SCSI drive
£189
£222.08
JAZ IGB external SCSI drive
£219
£257.33
Syjet internal 1.5GB SCSI drive
£219
£257.33
Syjet external 1.5GB SCSI drive
£255
£299.63
JAZ 2GB internal SCSI drive
£259
004.33
JAZ 2GB external SCSI drive
£279
027.83
PD 24x CD & 630MB optical SCSI drive
£249
£292.58
MEMORY
A300 & A400 I-4MB
£75
£88.13
A3 00 & A400 4-8MB
£119
£139.83
A3000 I-4MB
£55
£64.63
A3000 4-8MB
£149
£175.08
A3000 serial port upgrade
£25
£2938
A30I0 I-2MB
£25
£29.38
A30I0 I-4MB
£59
£69.33
A3020 & A4000 2-4MB
£35
£41.13
A5000 2-4MB
£60
£70.50
A5000 4-8MB
£139
£163.33
16MB SIMM - Rise PC A7000/+
CALL
(ALL
32MB SIMM -Rise PC A7000/+
CALL
(ALL
64MB SIMM - Rise PC A7000/+
CALL
(ALL
128MB SIMM -Rise PC A7000/-4
CALL
(ALL
Rise PC 2MB VRAM
£75
£88.13
SCANNERS
inc FREE software worth £49
8x CD 7 drive Tower
32x CD 7 drive Tower
£379 £445.33 1
£579 £680.33
- The ultimate colour
BUBBLE-JET PRINTER FROM CANON
This 4-colour bi-directional printer has a
resolution of 1200x600dpi, and can print
up to 4.5 ppm on paper up to A4+ size
(so you can print
right to the edge of
A4) Choose from
Canon’s special hi-
resolution papers &
optional Photo
Cartridge for Super
PhotoReal quality
prints. For sheer special price only
quality and durability, ^ 08
this has to be the one!
The new ultra-slim ScanExpress 36-bit
colour scanner has a compact footprint,
fast scanning speeds and quiet operation.
Free ImageHaster software and TWAIN
driver. Free PC interface/software kit
(SCSI only). Optional transparency
adaptor available.
ScanExpress 6000 parallel
£99
£116.33
ScanExpress 6000 SCSI
£119
£139.83
ScanExpress 12000 SCSI
£169
£198.58
Scanflat 1200 pro SCSI
£399
£468.83
ImageMaster & Twain
£49
£57.58
Scanflat transparency kit - slides etc
£149
£175.08
ScanExpress transparency kit-slides etc
£75
£88.13
CanoScan 2700F film scanner
£499
£586.33
FIXING KITS, CARIES etc
Podule case for A3000
£16
£18.80
Fixing kits for hard drives
£8
£9.40
A4 IDE hard drive fixing kit
£12
£14.10
A300 series backplane (4 way 4 layer)
£48
£56.40
A7000/4- 1 slot backplane (not with CD)
£34
£39.95
Rise PC 2 slot backplane
£30
£35.25
2nd slice for Rise PC inc I05watt PSU
£99
£116.33
2nd slice for Rise PC
£76
£89.30
SCSI 1 & II cables choice from
£10
£11.75
SCSI/IDE ribbon cables from
£5
£5.88
SCSI terminator/adaptors (selection)
£10
£11.75
Monitor cable for all Acorn (selection)
£10
£11.75
128k ISDN Modems
Join the digital revolution at lightning fast
speeds! Using a Castle Technology ISDN
modem (connected to an Integrated Services
Digital Network pair of lines from BT), you
can ta(<e advantage of fast Web browsing, fast
data transfer, fast faxing,
and a hi-performance Special
phone line - all from Offer
one hi-tech box! tow
Choose from four
network/stand-alone £ H 6 33 inc VAT
models at great prices!
COMBOS (iin & cn)
Full range available - free fitting in combo case
when all purchased at the same time
H 8x CD & 100MB HD - external SCSI
£130
£152.75 ■
| 8x CD & 500MB HD -external SCSI
£150
£176.25 ■
REMOVABLE MEDIA
Zip 100MB media
£8
£9.40
Zip 100MB media (6 pack)
£45
£52.83
Syquest 105MB media
£29
£34.03
Syquest 135MB media
£21
£24.68
Syquest 230MB media
£19
£22.33
Syquest 270MB media
£32
£37.60
MaxIT 500MB media
£29
£34.03
Nomai 750MB media
£38
£44.65
JAZ IGB media
£58
£68.15
Syjet 1.5GB media
£55
(64.63
JAZ 2GB media
£79
£92.63
PD 630MB media
£18
£21.15
CD 630MB write once media (Pk of 10)
£12
£14.10
CD 630MB re-write media
£12
£14.10
COLOUR MONITORS
3 year warranty on all monitors (I year on AKFI8)
The latest developments in TFT
screen technology bring the ProLite
36 space-saving flat screens from
liyama. The 14.1" screen has a
viewable area almost 17" and a
maximum resolution 1024x768.
It is ecologically advanced with
low power consumption and
reduced eye strain. Suitable for
schools or business.
AKFI8 14" grade B - pre RiscPC"
14" SVGA
15" digital SVGA
17" digital SVGA
15" digital SVGA liyama
17" digital SVGA Pro 0.25 liyama
21" digital SVGA liyama
14" colour LCD display (TFT Analogue)
£ 599
£79
£92.83
£89
£104.58
£110
£129.25
£200
£235.00
£159
£186.83
£340
£399.50
£729
£856.58
£599
£703.83
KEYBOARDS MICE ETC
Ergo keyboard for pre Rise PC
£69
£81.08
Ergo keyboard for Rise PC A7000/-F N/C
£39
£45.83
Keyboard for Rise PC A7000/+ N/C
£19
£22.33
! Keyboard cable (6 way)
£10
£11.75
j Mouse for all Acorns (not A7000 etc)
£12
£14.10
Mouse for A7000/+ N/C
£15
£17.63
i Mouse balls heavy (pack of 10)
£15
£17.63
• Floppy drive any Acorn except A300 A4
£30
£35.25
; Replacement floppy drive for A4
£79
£92.83
PROCESSORS
& RISC OS
Rise OS 3.11 chip set
£25
£29.38
Rise OS 3.11 manual set
£20
£23.50
Rise OS 3.11 hardware upgrade - A300
£20
£23.50
ARM 610 processor (2nd user)
£69
£81.08
ARM 3 processor for A3000 A300 A400
£99
£116.33
MODEMS
All modems are external and come with
FREE on-line time
56k modem
£59
£6933
128k ISDN modem
£99
£11633
128k ISDN 4- 2 analogue phone ports
£109
£128.08
128k ISDN hub router with lOBaseT
£249
£292.58
128k ISDN modem router (managed)
£385
£452.38
DELIVERY CHARGES - Next day insured
Orders oyer £200 paid by debit card
FREE
FREE
Small items
£6
£7.05
All other orders
£11
£12.93
Fitting charge (inc collection)
£18
£21.15
We welcome payment by cheque (allow 5 days to clear),
Credit and Debit cards.
INIQET PRINTERS
inc FREE data cable & Acorn driver WORTH £20
Advanced inkjet technology for bright
colour images & fast printing times.
. Up to 1200dpi resolution (virtual
: photographic quality). Supplied with
• Acorn drivers & data cables.
N BJC-250
CANON BJC-4300
CANON BJC-4650
CANON BJC-7000
EPSON Stylus colour 440
EPSON Stylus colour 640
EPSON Stylus colour 850
Parallel printer cable
Turbo driver for above printers
Acorn printer driver for any listed printer
TCP/IP (LPR) postscript printer driver
SPECIALS
DOA warranty only
JPI50 sheet feeder
Master 128 motherboard
German keyboards RiscPC/A7000 etc
A5000 Power Supply Unit
SJ Econet Bridge
Acorn Econet interface
SJ Econet starter kit
PC card for A3000 A30I0A3020 A4000
Startwrite wordprocessor
£84
£98.70
£105
£123.38
£227
£266.73
£189
£222.08
£115
£135.13
£149
£175.08
£219
£25733
£10
£11.75
£45
£52.88
£10
£11.75
£175
£205.63
£10
£11.75
£10
£11.75
£10
£11.75
£15
£17.6)
£20
£23.50
£5
£5.88
£20
£23.50
£99
£11633
£5
£5.83
EDUCATIONAL ORDERS WELCOMED.
CASTLE TECHNOLOGY. Ore Trading Estate
Woodbridge Road, Framlingham, Suffolk IPI3 9LL
TEL0I728 621222 FAX: 0800 783 9638
Sales lines open Monday to Friday 9.00am till 5.00pm
Saturday 9.00am till 1 .00pm
Contact us by e-mail: sales@castle-technology.co.uk
Visit our web site! http://www.castle-technology.co.uk
All trademarks acknowledged.
E&OE.
All products carry a
full I year warranty
unless otherwise stated.
Acorn
FreeFax 0800 783 9638 Phone 0 1 728 62 1 222 FreeFax 0800 783 9638 Phone 0 1 728 62 1 222
Features
36 RISCOS Ltd
^ ^ Alasdair Bailey takes a trip to
RISCOS Ltd and meets three
bachelor boys
\m
ISQ
s
Ltdl
Published by
tau
PRES
I
s
Media House, Adlington Park, Macclesfield SK10 4NP
e-mail enquiries@acomuser.com
http://www.ncornuser.com /
Tel: (01625) 878888 Fax: (01625) 859808
Printed by Apple Web Offset, Warrington
Editor Steve Turnbull
Assistant Editor Dunstan Orchard
Production Manager Alan Jones
Art Editor Anthony Broughton
Contributors
Dave Acton, lan Burley, Alasdair Bailey,
Mike Buckingham, Mike Cook, Mike Cowgill,
David Dade, Dave Lawrence, Steve Mumford,
Jill Regan, Steve Scott, Pam Turnbull, Paul Wheatley,
David Watkins, Paul Wheatley, Mike Williams
Account Manager John Snowden
Ad Production Dunstan Orchard
Finance Manager Charlie Moran
Subscription Manager Richard Siggee
Circulation Director Darren Whiteman
Distribution COMAG (01895) 444055
Managing Director Steve Turnbull
Subscriptions:
0870 6060424
E-mail: subscript@acomuser.com
13 issue subscription rate: £45.99 (UK),
£51.99 (EU), £63.99 (World)
Acorn User is available as speech from the
Talking Newspaper Association UK
©1999 Tau Press Ltd.
No material may be reproduced in whole or in part without
written permission. While every cam is taken,
the publishers cannot be held legally responsible for
any errors in articles, listings or advertisements and
the views of contributors do not necessarily reflect
the views of the publishers
Internet Services provided by Argonet, www.argonet.co.uk
Regulars
6
News
Read about the new RISC OS
computers from RiscStation Ltd, and
Interconnex's new Micro machine
Graphics
Paul Wheatley takes a brief look at
DrnwWorks Millennium, the new
vector package from iSV
Comms
JavaScript Fresco©, a virtual
harddrive, cheaper BT lines and
another ISDN offer from Clares
Public Domain
Connect your Psion for free, find out
what's slowing your computer down,
change ISP with ease.. .and more
21 PC page
“ Can't be bothered to go to work?
Now you can control your office PC
from home
O'! Cover disc
Find out what's on this month's CD
cover disc
Game show
A look at the latest games news from
Alasdair Bailey
70
72
Subscriptions page
Take advantage of our fantastic
subscription offers and get yours
today
Letters
More readers have their say on our
letters page, including one very odd
one
H A The Regan Files
AAUG Chairman Neil Spellings
gives a world exclusive interview in
this months Regan Files
Next month
For those lucky enough to own Photodesk 3,
Walter Briggs presents the first of his Photodesk
layers tutorials; and for those who aren't so
fortunate, Simon Anthony demonstrates photo-
retouching using Paint and Draw.
On sale 10th June 1999
Education
59
60
Education News
Pam Turnbull reveals the latest
education news
Education Reviews
Pam looks back over the last
Millennium
Reviews
r yn DigSigGen
“ " Mike Cook gets busy with a new
digital signal-generator
APDL Games
David Watkins reviews the value-for-
money games on these two APDL
releases
Earth & Space CDs
Mike Cook casts a critical eye over
two informative CDs (he gets
everywhere doesn't he?)
Hands on
'I'l MIDI controllers
^ ^ Michael Cowgill follows on from his
MIDI series in Archimedes World
43 Wimp C
Steve Mumford looks at calling
functions by pointer
49 *INFO
^ Dave and Dave amuse themselves
with a game of zoom-about-low-fatty-
net-whack - marvellous journalism
Run the Rise
Mike Cook makes a drone generator
from some sticky-backed plastic and
a toilet roll - what a guy
l ZlZ Rambles through
Acorn Wood
Magic Mike gives out some more
helpful advice
Play your own "Destiny" special offer Page 34
EasyFont Pro special offer Page 42
Advertisers Index Page 68
Back issues Page 56
http://www.acornuser.com June 1 999 V
Curriculum Training Associates
Dept. AU06, 168 Elliott St.
Tyldesley
O. See us at Acorn Wakefield Show 99 stands 3 & 4 Gtr. Manchester
M29 8DS
V7\
■ •
\
<
/
EMAIL: sales@cta.u-net.com http://www.cta.u-net.com Tel - 01942 797777 Fax - 01942 797711
Finance Deals
* 0% Buy now, pay 6 months
later.
* Can convert into standard
finance package, no penalty
(still yet 6 months intrest
free)
* Low Cost Finance Option
@ 1.5% per month (19.9%
APR) u p to 5 years to pay.
* No early settlement
penalties.
* Can make additional
purchases up to your credit
limit without re-application.
* * Ring For full details
THE BEST! PRINTER PRICES
( Please ring for latest prices )Ex. VAT Inc. VAT
Canon BJC 250 colour A4 £84.00 £98.70
Canon BJC 2000 colour #A4 £100.00 £117.50
Canon BJC 2000 Scan ! #A4 £169.00 £198.58
Canon BJC 4650 colour# A3 £228.00 £267.90
Canon BJC 4650 Scan ! #A3 £275.00 £323.13
Canon BJC 7000 colour #A4 £169.00 £198.58
Epson Stylus 440 colour A4 £99.00 £1 16.33
Epson Stylus 640 Colour A4 £124.00 £145.70
Epson Stylus 850 Colour A4 £213.00 £250.28
Epson Stylus 1 520 Col A3 £350.00 £4 1 1 .25
Epson Styl Photo 700 # A4 £139.00 £163.33
Epson Styl Photo EX # A3 £290.00 £340.75
HP420C A4 £74.00 £86.95
HP 695C Colour A4 £104.00 £122.20
HP 895CXI Colour A4 £200.00 £235.00
HP LASERJET 1 1 00 £249.00 £292.58
HP LASERJET 2 1 00 £454.00 £533.45
Photo drivers for # £58.72 £69.00
Scanner drivers for ! £29.79 £35.00
*** FREE Acorn driver by request****
0% Interest FREE credit (6 months) or LOW cost finance
on all new systems, & FREE Internet connection
Desktop FAX MODEMS
) 56k x2/V90 3Com USR
£118.30 £129.00
56k Flex/V90 (Rockwell)
£58.72
£69.00
ISDN modem (external)
£169.36 £169.00
High speed serial erds frm
£67.23
£79.00
Internet & Modem Software
Ant Internet Suite
£94.05 £110.51
WebsterXL
£21.28
£25.00
IBrowse CD
£33.19
£39.00
IJarva CD
£33.19
£39.00
ArcFAX Fax software
£26.38
£31.00
MONITORS
Ex. VAT
Inc. VAT
14" SVGA 0.28 (3yr on-site)
£89.00
£104.58
14" SVGA 0.28 Multi-Media
£105.00
£123.38
| 15" SVGA 0.28 (3yr on-site)
£110.00
£129.25
■ 15" SVGA 0.28 Multimedia
£129.00
£151.57
15" Iiyama Vison Master 350
£129.00
£151.57
1 17" SVGA 0.28 (lyrRTB)
£159.00
£186.83
17" SVGA 0.28 (3yr on-site)
£170.00
£199.75
17" SVGA 0.25 (3yr on-site)
£275.00
£323.13
17" Iiyama Vison Master 702
£235.00
£276.13
i 17" Iiyama Pro 400
£316.00
£371.30
19" SVGA 0.26 (lyrRTB)
£280.00
£329.00
19" SVGA 0.26 (3yr on-site)
£360.00
£423.00
19" Iiyama Pro 450
£460.00
£540.50
! 21" SVGA 0.25 (3yr on-site)
£540.00
£634.50
2 1 " Iiyama Pro Diamondtron
£665.00
£781.38
38" SVGA (lyr on-site)
£1500.00
£1762.50
AKF18 Multisync (14")
£115.00
£135.13
AKF53 Multisync (14")
£165.00
£193.88
AKF50 Multisync (14")
£195.00
£229.13
AKF12 PAL (14" refurb)*
£65.00
£76.38
* 2nd user mon’s available with 90 days WTY
| Multisync A300/3000 cable
£8.50
£9.99
233Mhz SA RiscPC Offers
e.g. RPC SA
2M+32Mb/2.1G/
CSS 40x CD & 17"
jg. irr monitor for only
£1125 + VAT <>i
£34.00/month via
L.C.F. * RPC SA bases from £850 inc
VAT or £22.00/month via L.C.F. *
AM) we will match or heat your best
SAJ233 Web Wizard
2M+32Mb/2. 1 G/24x CD/15" mon/
Stereo Spk, inc IBrowse, Jarva and
Word 6/7 compatibility. & 56K
modem for only £1145 + VAT
Coming soon
RiscStation R7500
e.g. R7500 +16M / 4.3G / 40x
CD /1 4" mon & Stereo Spk for
only £649 exc vat (£762.58)
FREE Software Bundle
Due in July 1999
A7000+ System Offers
e.g. A7000 +16M
/2.1G/40x CD/
15" mon & Stereo
Spk for only £749
exc VAT or £23.00
/ month via L.C.F.
.ri”' 4 1
Please ask for other combinations
A7000 + Peak Performer
8M / 2. 1 G / 32x CD /14" mon / Stereo
Spk & FREE Software Bundle for
only £749 + VAT (£808 + vat for both
bundles)
PC s/w only £170.00 exc
vat (£199.75)
Acorn & PC s/w
£255.00 (£299.63)
Qvlla/Qvl00s/wkit £96
(£112.80)
HARD DRIVES AND SUBSYSTEMS why pay more???
A3000/A3010 A3020
Ex. VAT Inc. VAT Ex. VAT Inc. VAT
170 Mb £ 95 £111.63 ! £55 £64.63
340 Mb £112 £131.60 ! £69 £81.08
512 Mb £127 £149.23 1 £85 £99.88
810 Mb £139 £163.33 !# £119 £139.83
1Gb £149 £175.08 !# £124 £145.70
2 Gb £159 £186.83 !# £134 £158.63
3 Gb £169 £198.58 !# £144 £169.20
4 Gb £189 £222.08 !# £164 £192.70
A3000 version includes CD ROM i/f which can be used in
A3020 or A4000 For external A3000 add £20.00 +VAT
# includes partitioning software
A4ooo/A5ooo/a4oo
Ex. VAT Inc. VAT
210refurb £30 £35.25
420M # £49 £57.58
540Mb * £85 £99.88
730Mb* £93 £109.28
1.2Gb* £115 £135.13
2.1Gb* £125 £146.88
3.2Gb* £135 £158.63
4.0Gb* £145 £170.38
• inc. internal removable HD & CD
ROM i/f. For partitioning software
only deduct £25.00 + vat (29.38)
RFC /A7000
rrw
2 10 refurb £30
512M £59
1.2G
2.1G
3.2G
4.3G
6.4G
8.4G
16.8G
£70
£80
£85
£35.25
£69.33
£82.25
£94.00
£99.88
£90 £105.75
£100 £117.50
£110 £129.25
£198 £232.65
# limited supply
El
ACORN
TRACKBALL
& MOUSE
£29.79 + VAT
CD-R OMS
IDE
40x £45.00 (£52.88) 32x
32x £39.00 (£45.83) 16x
24x £35.00 (£41.13) 12x
8x £30.00 (£35.25) 8x
For EXTERNAL IDE or SCSI 1 add £50.00 + VAT (inc. cable)
(3.5 IDE driver £15 + vat) IDE int. fitting kit £5 inc.
For external SCSI II add £55.00 + Vat. (inc. cable)
Internal SCSI fitting kits from £10 + vat
SCSI
£70.00 (£82.25)
£40.00 (£47.00)
£35.00 (£41.13)
£30.00 (£35.25)
SCSI HARD DRIVES
540M (limited Stock) £60.00 (£70.50)
1.0Gb £70.00 (£82.25)
2Gb (7200rpm) # £110.00 (£129.25)
4.3Gb (5400 or 7200rpni)£ 140.00 (£164.50)
9.1Gb (7200rpm) £235.00 (£276.13)
18.6Gb 7,200rpm £425.00 (£499.38)
For EXT. SCSI 1 case £50.00 + VAT (inc. cable)
For EXT. SCSI II case £55.00 + VAT (inc. cable)
CD-ROM WRITERS
j Prices Start
from
‘L. 1
£170.00 +
2x2x6x RcWrt
£170.00 (£199.75)
4x4x1 6xReWrt £235.00 (£276.13)
CD-BURN
£49.00 £57.58
CD-SCRIBE2
£49.00 £57.58
SCSI 8x
Autochanger
£85.00 + vat
(£99.88)
IDE Removable Drives
Zip 100 IDE £65.00 £76.38
Zip SCSI ext £85.00 £99.88
Zip SCSI int £85.00 £99.88
IDE drives require suitable drivers/ hardware
Parallel Removable Drives
Zip Parallel £110.00 £129.25
Jaz 1G Parallel £239.00 £280.83
Jaz 2G Parallel £315.00 £370.13
* P’llel drives inc. Acorn Software
SCSI Removable
PD650/CD £139.00
Nomai 750 £165.00
Jaz 1G int £189.00
Jaz 1G ext £199.00
Syjet 1.5Gi £199.00
Syjet 1.5Ge £199.00
Jaz 2G int £265.00
Jaz 2G ext £265.00
Drives
£163.33
£193.88
£222.08
£233.83
£233.83
£233.83
£311.38
£311.38
Removable Drive Media
Ex. VAT Inc. VAT
Ex. VAT Inc. VAT
lOOmb Zip
£8.45
£9.93
1Gb Jazz
£58.00
£68.15
Zip 5 pack
£38.30
£45.00
1.5Gb Syquest
£58.00
£68.15
1 20mb LS 1 20
£7.50
£8.81
135 Syqucst
£21.00
£24.68
CDR CD-ROM
£1.28
£1.50
230 Syquest
£19.90
£23.38
CDR 10 pack
£10.00
£11.75
270 Syquest
£29.75
£34.96
CDR 25 pack
£21.28
£25.00
650Mb PD
£19.00
£22.33
CDR/W CDROM
£8.51
£10.00
750Mb Nomai £38.00
£44.65
CDR/W 10 pack
£70.00
£82.25
6 Drive CD-ROM SCSI Towers
8x £299 exc.
4x 8x £699 exc. 32x £499 exc.
Interface Adapters
Storm SCSI 8 bit (A30x0 int)
£88.00
£103.40
Storm SCSI 16 bit (podule)
£96.00
£112.80
Storm SCSI 32 bit (podule)
£128.00
£150.40
Powcrtcc SCSI3 32 bit (Pod)
£170.00
£199.75
Simtec 8 bit ( A3000/A30 1 0)
£55.00
£64.63
Simtec 16 bit (AX00/A5000/RPC)
£45.00
£52.88
APDL (ICS)16 bit DMA
£45.00
£52.88
RapIDE32
£119.00
£139.83
Removable IDE or SCSI Housing Unit £20.00 (£23.50)
3 yr Warranty on ALL Acorn MEMORY why Pay More??
NETWORKING
\ ACORN MEMORY NEW PRICES
Ex. VAT Inc. VAT
1 4-8 MB Up. (A3 10, 440, 3000*) £99 £116.33
1 4-8 MB Up. (A5000*) £119 £139.83
1 * rework for A 3000/5000/25 mhz £25 £29.38
£25 £29.38
£45 £52.88
£55 £64.63
£40 £47.00
£45 £52.88
£20 £23.50
£45 £52.88
£55 £64.63
£23 £27.03
£50 £58.75
£25 £29.38
£19 £22.33
£45 £52.88
£97 £113.98
I A3010 1-2 MB Upgrade
I A3010 2-4 MB Upgrade (exch)
I A3010 1-4 MB Upgrade
A3020/4000 2-4 MB Upgrade
I A5000 2-4 MB Upgrade
A3000 1-2 MB Non-Upgrade
I A3000 2-4 upgrade (exchange)
I A3000 1-4 MB Upgrade
I A3000 Serial Port Upgrade
I A3 10 4Mb Upgrade
1 A400/1 1 Mb Upgrade per meg
I Rise OS Carrier Board (A3 10)
I MEMC 1 A upg (short supply)
**NEW** A540 4Mb
RISC PC MEMORY
Also FOR A7000
Ex. VAT
Inc. VAT
8Mb SIMM
£11.00
£12.92
16Mb SIMM
£22.00
£25.85
32Mb SIMM
£48.00
£56.40
32Mb High Clearance
£53.00
£62.28
64Mb SIMM
£85.00
£99.88
128Mb SIMM
£170.00
£199.75
1Mb VRAM
£38.30
£45.00
2Mb VRAM
£76.00
£89.30
1-2 Mb (exchange)
£66.00
£77.55
Please ring for latest prices
33 Mhz Arm 3 upgrade
with FPA socket £115.00 inc
with FPA 10 fitted(25Mhz) £165.00 inc
ETHERNET INTERFACES
Ex. VAT Inc. VAT
I A3000 int 10base2 or T , Access+ £89.00 £104.58
I A400 / A5000 10basc2 or T Acc+ £89.00 £104.58
I A400 / A5000 10base2 & T Acc+ £99.00 £116.33
A3020 10basc2 Access+/ext MAU £99.00 £1 16.33
A3020 lObaseT Access+/cxt MAU £99.00 £1 16.33
I RiscPC/A7000 10basc2 orT Acc+ £89.00 £104.58
RiscPC/A7000 10base2 & T Acc+ £99.00 £1 16.33
I Ant Acccss+ ROM upgrade £ 1 0.00 £ 1 1 .75
Network Hubs
exc Vat inc Vat
I lObT 16+2(18) port £75.00 (£88.13)
100/10 Auto 16 port £249.00 (£29.58)
Cables
2M
£4
£5.29
3M
£6
£7.05
5M
£7
£8.23
10M
£11
£12.93
20M
£15
£17.63
Stale 10basc2
or lObaseT
any size made to
order
We supply and / or install
all network components
please ring for your
requirements
RiscOS 3.11 Rom upgrades
£25.00 exc Vat (£29.38)
MICE & KEYBOARDS
High Quality
Acorn ERGO
Mouse £12.00
(£14.10)
Ex. VAT Inc. VAT
I Acorn Trackball/Mouse *NEW* £29.79 £35.00
I Acorn Original Mouse £25.00 £29.38
I Acorn ERGO Mouse *NEW* £12.00 £14.10
A7000 replacem'l Mouse *NF\VU!2.00 £14.10
Ergo (std) RiscPC Keyboard £21.28 £25.00
I Ergo curved RiscPC K/board £29.79 £35.00
I A400/A5000 replacement k/brd £59.00 £69.33
A400/A5000 Ergo keybroard £69.00 £8 1 .08
^3
Replacement Floppys Drives
A3000/400/500 £29.00+vat (£34.08)
A30X0/4000/5000 floppy allows cross
-formatting of HD and DD discs
£29.00+vat (£34.08)
RiscOS 4 £99.00 +vat
(£116.33) place your order now
Fitting & data transfer, if required, £25 inc vat
(£15 with new HD).
COLOUR SCSI SCANNERS
All scanners inc. Acorn SW
P'llel Mustek 600dpi £99.00 (£1 16.33)
Mustek A4 600 dpi £ 1 1 9.00 (£ 1 39.83)
Mustek A4 1200 dpi £149.00 (£175.08)
Epson GT7000 £199.00 (£233.83)
| Epson GT7000P £249.00 (£292.58)
Imagemaster & Twain available
separately
POWERED SPEAKERS
Ex. VAT Inc. VAT
60 watts with PSU £16.98 £19.95
240 watts with PSU £24.68 £29.00
Subwoofer system £42.00 £49.35
Character Mouse Mats
Southpark Kenny £5.99
Southpark Cartman £5.99
Disney Mickey, Pooh, Donald etc. £5.99
X-filcs (four types) £5.99
Garfield or novelty £4.99
Std. mat £1.00 / Econ. 0.65 p
Switch Boxes
2-1 with cable £15.00 £17.63
2-1 Auto with cable £15.00 £17.63
4-1 with cable £19.00 £22.33
2-1 Monitor /K'board £29.79 £35.00
R-Comp CD-ROM Software
ABUSE
£22.00
Descent
£27.00
DOOM+ Trilogy (£32.50 with book)
£30.00
Heroes of Might and Magic 2
£32.00
Quake (due soon)
£33.00
Syndicate +
£26.00
Towers of Darkness (Hexen triple)
£30.00
Consumables
Premier Quality Ink Refills
Single refills
Twin refills
Triple refills
Tri- Colour
Quad-Colour
125 ml
250ml
500ml
1 litre
(1x22 ml)
( 2x22ml )
(3x22ml)
(CM* Y)
(CM-Y.K)
£6.00 inc
£10.00 inc
£14.00 inc
£15.00 inc
£20.00 inc
£21.00 inc
£38.00 inc
£50.00 inc
£70.00 inc
All sizes available in C,M,Y,K
FLOPPY DISKS @20p !!
Ex. VAT Inc.VAT
DD Re-label Acorn frnt 10 £2.00 £2.35
DD Re-label Acorn fmt 100 £17.02 £20.00
HD bulk Acorn or PC 10 £2.00 £2.35
HD bulk Acorn or PC 1 00 £ 1 7.02 £20.00
HD Branded 10 pack £3.50 £4.1 1
20 cap Disk Box £1.69 £2.00
40 cap Disk Box £2.54 £2.98
100 cap Disk Box £2.98 £3.50
3.5” Floppy head cleaners £2.50 £2.94
CD-ROM cleaner £4.25 £4.99
Printer Ribbons, Inkjet
Cartridges,
New/Recycled Laser Toner Carts
Prices available on request
ARCSHARE
Acorn networking for PCs
£29.95 exc Vat £35.19 inc Vat
see network section for Cards etc.
StrongARM Special Offer
£259.00 inc VAT
(with any Hard Drive / Memory
purchase)
RiscPC PC Cards
DX2-66 £145.00 inc VAT
DX4-100 £195.00 inc VAT
586-100 (Acorn) £290.00 inc VAT
586-133 (CJE 512) £300.00 inc VAT
We can repair/upgrade your
machine(s) and monitors at
competitive prices please ask
All Acorn's , BBCs & PCs
NEW STAFF
CTA Direct are recruiting new
sales, technical and Modern
Apprentices. Please send CV to
Main Address marked
Careers@CTA
(All Prices below include VAT)
THE BARGAIN BASEMENT
Acorn Software Bin
I A30 10 Joystick Controller Software £15.00
I Acom Pocket Book..Schedulc £10.00
I Alone in the Dark £29.00
Arm Tech Labeller £9.00
I Arm Tech ClipArt (various per pack) £8.00
Birds of War £20.00
I Boxing Manager £8.00
I ColourSep (Colour Separation Software) £8.00
I Creator 2 £25.00
I D'File Font Pack (Academy) £10.00
I D'File Font Pack (Balmoral) £10.00
I D'File Font Pack (FrecStyle Script) £10.00
I D'File Font Pack (Manhattan) £10.00
I D'File Font Pack (Mastercard) £10.00
D'File Font Pack (Old Townc 536) £12.00
I Diary + £9.00
I Drifter £30.00
FIRE and ICE £15.00
I Frak (for RPC) £13.00
I Galactic Dan £10.00
Game ON (for RPC) £15.00
I Global Effect £25.00
I Guile £10.00
I HERO QUEST £15.00
I Imagery An Package £25.00
I Jahangir Khan Squash £8.00
I KV ( Platform Game) £8.00
My World Support Disc Ancient Egypt £ 1 2.00
I My World Support Disc Ancient Greece £ 1 3.00
I Nuclides II and Elements II (save £5.00) £25.00
iiU
Revelation 2
£29.00
SilvcrBall
£9.99
StrongGuard
£25.00
TURBO DRIVER - Epson Stylus
£45.00
Visual Backup
£15.00
Wavelenth
£12.00
World Class Lcaderboard (GOLF)
£10.00
Zool (on HD)
£10.00
Acorn CD-ROM Software
Crystal Maze
£15.00
D'File PDCD 3 or 4
£5.00
D’File PDCD 5
£10.00
Hutchinson Encyclopedia
£39.00
Robert Duncan Cartoon KIT
£39.00
Topic-Art CD
£5.00
Tots TV ABC
£15.00
YITM Electricity and magnetism
£15.00
YITM Elements
£15.00
YITM Materials
£15.00
YITM (all three titles)
£35.00
CD General Resource Titles
35,000 Clip Art (WMF)
£20.00
50,000 Clipart
£15.00
75,000 Clip Art (WMF)& imagcs£25.00
Internet Clipart (new)
£15.00
COREL ARTSHOW 5
£29.00
Werewolf Software
Shuggy was £25.95 now £14.95
T A.N.K.S. was £25.95 £16.95
RAMplify was £19.95 £17.95
C lildPtny ( desktop) £14.95
1/2 price (or less) Book Bargains
Dabhand Guide "Budget DTP" £3.00
Dabhand Guide "C" ver 3 £8.50
Dabhand Guide "C" ver 2 £3.00
Dabhand "Graphics on the ARM £7.50
Dabhand Guide "Impression” £7.50
Internet info server £20.00
SQL £17.50
Various Hardware bargains
A3000 2Mb bases from
A3010 2Mb bases from
A3020 2Mb bases from
A4000 2Mb bases from
A5000 4Mb bases from
A4 Portables (6 months wty)
RPC bases from
SVGA Monitors Various from
Pioneer SCSI 4x 6x stack
new items 12 months wty *2nd
£65 £76.38*
£85 £99.88*
£125 £146.88*
£150 £176.25*
£250 £293.75*
£600 £705.00
£468 £549.90*
£45 £52.88*
£139 £163.33
user 90 days wty
We have a large collection of
Budget PC software suitable for
RPC Pc Emulators and PC clones
inc, Education, Home, games an
utilities please ring for list
Alternative PC Bases
i.e. Sicilians Nixorf Pentium
200 MMX from ONLY £249.00 +
ring for latest prices.
HOW TO ORDER
BY MAIL or PHONE: Cheques or P.O.s should be
made payable to 'CTA DIRECT.
CREDIT CARD / SWITCH please give name,
address, tel. no, curd no, expiry date, issue no.
BY EMAIL: sales@cta.u-net.com
OFFICIAL ORDERS by MAIL or FAX please
Carriage charges inc. ins. & packaging charged at cost
Small items (under 2Kg) no more than £6 + vat
One box of items totalling upto 25kg...£6.50 + vat
Computer systems £13 + vat
All prices are correct going to press. E&OE
All goods arc fullyguarantced but not supplied on
approval
Artistic Licence
Acorn Computer Group PLC has transferred its 24.42% stake in ARM
Holdings PLC to its Applied Rise Technologies Ltd subsidiary. ART was
originally the Acorn Group company which was set up to generate
consultancy and 3rd party design work after the Online Media division
was closed.
Acorn's ARM holding, which is worth around £200 million on paper,
has been transferred in ordered to tidy up the Acorn Group's balance
sheet. Element 14, the re-named Acorn Computers Limited company, is
now the focus of most of Acorn's activity in the bid to become
established as an innovative supplier of digital TV technology. ART is
still serving old customers, but E14 is Acorn's real future.
Speculation that Acorn was, after all, going to sell its ARM holding,
sent both Acorn's and ARM's shares markedly higher. However, unless
Acorn's accountants have discovered a crafty way of minimising the
massive tax burden posed by disposing the holding, you shouldn't hold
your breath.
Another new RISC OS
hardware venture
Since last month's news that the future of RISC OS is assured, along
with its availability to third party licensees, the list of manufacturers
developing RISC OS-based computers has grown.
Besides CTL, which is manufacturing selected lines from Acorn's
old product range. Millipede Electronic Graphics, which is
developing a new high performance motherboard to fit the Rise PC,
and the Interconnex 'Peanut' notebook, last month we reported
news from Germany about the planned Galileo family of RISC OS
computers.
This month we can add RiscStation Ltd, which is a new company
created from the Acorn dealer, CI A Direct. RiscStation's first
product, the RiscStation 7500, appears to be a more flexible and
feature-enhanced alternative to the original Acorn A7000+. It has the
same ARM7500FE integrated chip-set, but is clocked slightly faster
at 56MHz. Instead of the A7000's compact proprietary case, the
RiscStation is to be offered with a standard PC-style desktop or
mini-tower case, and the RiscStation 7500 motherboard conforms to
the micro ATX installation standard.
Compared to the A7000+, the RiscStation is supplied with more
RAM as standard (16Mb compared with 8Mb)
and a larger harddisc (4.3Gb compared with
2Gb). It also has a 40X CD-ROM drive.
RiscStation also mentions 'ISA-style'
expansion ports in its specification sheet,
optional infra-red communications and an
optional USB (universal serial bus) interface.
There is even mention of an AppleTalk port,
built in SCSI and 56K modems.
Preliminary prices are: £575 for the base
unit; £649 with a Min monitor; £675 with a
15in monitor; and £749 with a 17in monitor.
All come with a software bundle, and all
prices are exclusive of VAT.
We only received details of RiscStation's
plans just prior to going to press, so our
information is fairly sketchy. We are promised
that final product will be shipped not long
after the Wakefield Show. The good news is
that CTA Direct and RiscStations Ltd will be
exhibiting at the Wakefield Show (15- 16th
May) and we'll all have an opportunity to find
out more about their plans then.
The contact person at CTA Direct and
RiscStations Ltd is Roy Heslop, e-mail:
roy@cta.u-net.com, tel: 01942 797777.
June 1999 http://www.acornuser.com
StrongARM in
With the FreePen covered elsewhere in the News this month, the
pen theme continues with news of a StrongARM processor powering
another Scandinavian pen-device, the C Pen, from the Swedish
company C Technologies AB. The C Pen was officially launched into the
European market at the recent CeBIT show in Hanover, Germany.
Actually, describing the C Pen as a 'pen' is stretching the definition
somewhat - it doesn't write and it's practically as big as a small mobile
phone, but it is held and operated in the hand like a pen. The C Pen is
a pen
actually a compact image scanner which can scan graphics and text,
converting the latter to text files using OCR. It incorporates a four line
LCD screen and communicates with a host computer via infra-red.
8Mb of flash memory is built in and there are no moving parts - even
for the optical scanner head in the tip of the pen. The StrongARM is
clocked at 100MHz and the whole device weighs just 100 grams. More
information on the C Pen is available from C Technologies Web site at
http: / / www.ctech.ideon.se
A pen-shaped
challenge to the
humble mouse
Take a computer mouse, shrink its ball - if you'll pardon the expression, cut off its tail and
stretch it into a pen shape and you have the gist of the new FreePen cordless computer pointer.
The Danish design, from Kanitech A/S, is a neat cigar-shaped and sized device which can be
used in much the same way as a stylus and a digitiser pad, except there is no pad and, unlike
some pad-based systems, there is no wire connecting the device to the computer.
Communication between the pen and the computer is via a radio receiver which plugs into
either the serial port or a standard PS/2-style mouse port. In theory, any Acorn which can use a
PS/2 mouse should be able to work with the FreePen. Three buttons on the 'pen' represent
usual mouse button functions and you can also 'click' the mouse by tapping the ball-tip of the
pen.
The FreePen should start shipping this summer, though as-yet we don't know the price. For
more about the FreePen, check out: http:/ / www.freepen.com. Alas, the last time we looked - it
was still all in Danish, but at least there are some nice pictures of the product.
RISC OS
programmers
sought
Orcgan Networks Ltd have several full-time job
vacancies for experienced RISC OS software
engineers. The positions will involve working on-
site at the Oregan Networks offices in
Leicestershire. Oregan say the work centres
around 'a number of exciting Set Top Box related
projects'.
Applicants need the following skills:
proficiency in C and the Acorn or ARMTools
compilers, an ability to integrate optimised ARM
code where required, experience of developing
RISC OS based WIMP applications, and an
understanding of Web based and Internet
technologies.
Contact Oregan Networks Ltd at tel: 01530 56
33 11, Web: http:/ / www.oregan.net
When is a DVD-ROM drive more
than a DVD-ROM drive?
Answer: when it supports DVD-RAM read-capability. A not so
well-known fact is that most DVD-ROM drives which have
been sold to date are unable to read DVD-RAM
(write/ erasable) discs. DVD-ROM drives, which look set to
replace CD-ROM drives in the next year or so, are now in
plentiful supply, and many PC makers are fitting them as
standard already.
DVD-RAM, the official standard for re-writeable DVD, has
been available in the form of Panasonic and Hitachi drives since
last Autumn. DVD-RAM discs can store as much as 9.4Gb of
data on a double-sided disc. The discs inside DVD-RAM
caddies, which are the same physical size as a compact disc, can
be removed and placed into the conventional 'bare' tray of a
DVD-ROM drive, but the disc encoding is not compatible with first generation DVD-ROM
drives.
Panasonic, which has been pushing DVD-RAM vigorously, is one of the first manufacturers
to ship a DVD-ROM drive which can read DVD-RAM discs. The Panasonic SR-8583, which has a
suggested price of £89.99+VAT, is a 5X mechanism, equivalent to 32X when reading CD-ROMs.
It's also backwards compatible with most popular CD formats, including CD-R and CD-RW.
The message is simple, when the time comes to choosing a DVD-ROM drive - check to make
sure it's DVD-RAM compatible. Panasonic, tel: 0800 444 220.
http://www.acornuser.com June 1999 V
Really free Internet
A couple of months ago, we brought news of
ClaraCall, an Internet service which was
cheaper than so-called 'free' services like
Dixons FreeServe. ClaraCall can save money
on the dial-up costs of surfing the Net, but a
new service called 'screaming.net' actually
offers no-cost dial-up to their free Internet
sendee during off-peak hours - after 6pm
weekdays and throughout the weekend. Even
during peak hours, after 8am in the morning
weekdays, you're guaranteed a 10 percent
reduction in the dial up cost.
So, what's the catch? Localtel, the company
behind screaming.net would argue that there
isn't a catch, and from what we've been told, it
looks pretty kosher. First of all, you need to
have an ordinary domestic BT phone line, so
cable and, we guess, Hull Telecom, customers
can move on to the next news story at this
point. ISDN and Home Highway customers
are being promised the service later in the
year.
What you have to do in order to access the
free screaming.net Internet sendee is sign up
to Localtel's phone service. This isn't as
worrying as it sounds as there is no physical
change to your phone line and it will continue
to be maintained by BT. What does happen is
that billing and customer support services are
taken over by Localtel.
However, all calls, except those to
mobile phones, are discounted by ten
news
percent compared to BT and the company
promises to maintain BT's Friends and
Family-style discounts, 1471 and call waiting
options.
For more information, check
http://www.screaming.net or visit your local
Tempo electrical store, where you will be able
to collect a free Microsoft Windows
screaming.net CD-ROM. The CD will both
register you with Localtel and the
screaming.net Internet service.
So you will need Windows compatibility at
first, but once your Internet parameters have
been established, it ought to be possible to
migrate them to your favoured RISC OS
Internet suite.
ISDN with extended features
Modems can do practically anything these days - they can connect you to the
Internet, send and receive faxes, take voice messages and some can take
messages even when your computer is switched off. But manufacturers of
ISDN terminal adapters (TAs), the all-digital equivalent of a modem, have
been far less adventurous with their designs. Now, however, with BT's
introduction of more affordable Highway ISDN-compatible services, ISDN
TAs are getting a makeover.
The new Pace ISDN Professional TA comes from the same company which
produced the Solo modem, which even announces an incoming caller's phone
number to you. The Pace ISDN Pro isn't quite as clever as the solo, but it is the
first ISDN TA we know of which incorporates fax, voice messaging and
calling line identification (CLI). The latter feature means you can plug in a
standard CLI box or phone which will then display the number of an
incoming caller.
RISC OS software from suppliers like David Pilling has been adapted to
work on various popular voice modems, so it shouldn't be difficult to produce
voice and fax support for the ISDN Pro. The price is £199 including VAT. For
more information, contact PMC Electronics Ltd, tel: 0990 561001, Web:
http://www.pacecom.co.uk, e-mail: sales@pacecom.co.uk
Ex-pat Acorns
We've been contacted by Dr. Andy Cartlidge
in Florida, who writes: 'Yes, there are a few
Acorn users here in the USA'. Andy operates a
specialist business with his father, who lives in
Stoke-on Trent, creating art work for bone
china tankards bearing the military insignia of
various regiments in the British military
forces.
Their main customer is the British military,
so accuracy and quality is paramount. Even in
far away Florida, ArtWorks and Acorns are the
tools of choice for the job. Andy explains:
'Essentially, as old regiments are being
disbanded, or amalgamated and 'rationalised',
we are commissioned to draw the Regimental
badges - sometimes from ancient woodcuts.
June 1999 http://www.acornuser.com
'On numerous occasions we've ended up
making the definitive artwork for the
regiment, as the old stuff was in error! We
then have them transferred to bone-china
tankards, among other things - cups, mugs
and trinket boxes are quite popular’.
Andy's father started the business using
associates who produced the art work by
hand, but the quality wasn't good enough. It
was then, a few years back, that the Florida-
based Acorns came to the rescue, according to
Andy: 'At the time my wife was not working,
so we volunteered the use of her time, our
A310 and ArlWorks. We've now progressed
though an A5000 and are currently using 2 SA
Rise PCs. Typically, my father gets the orders,
finds the (sometimes almost illegible) artwork
copy, and mails it to us.
'We draw it from scratch (scans are useful
for comparison), send a completed drawing
back to the UK where its checked, and then
we perform spot-colour separation. The
separations go to a transfer-maker, they're
then transferred to the china tankards, the
tankard is fired and we sell it. Easy, really!'
Naturally, it's not that easy after all —
especially authenticating various details in the
original designs. But the trans-Atlantic
teamwork has paid off, and 50 regiments later,
the business is doing very well. If you'd like to
find out more about British Militaria, e-mail:
andycart@worldnet.att.net
Icon Technology
Version 5 of EasiWriter and TechWriter now available
EasiWriter professional
• Powerful, fully featured, multi-column word processor.
• Reads and writes MS Word 6, 7 & 8 (Office 97/98).
• Reads and writes HTML.
• Reads RTF (Rich Text Format).
• Creates Hypertext documents.
• Built in Table Editor.
• Automatic bulleted and numbered lists.
• Mail merge.
• Automatic numbering of Lists, Sections etc.
• Pamphlet printing.
• Drag & Drop and Cut, Copy & Paste.
p* ee the new
w V , ersi °n s
Wakefield
Stand 48
M -.croSO«®
Word
price Including VAT and P&P
TechWriter professional
“Its great ! At the risk of writing advertising copy for Icon
Technology \ no piece of software on any platform has
made me grin with delight as I discover new features as
much as TechWriter has . ” Archive
• All the features of EasiWriter professional plus a
powerful easy to use equation editor.
• Writes TeX.
• Saves equations as GIF’s (using InterGif) when writ-
ing HTML.
• Used by the Mathematical Association to produce the
Mathematical Gazette.
Product
Offer prices
Normal price Offer
Beads
EasiWriter professional £129.00 £96.00 £116.32
TechWriter professional £199.00 £149.00 £178.59
Great deals for students - check our Web site, email or ring for details.
Upgrades from earlier versions to version 5 from £15.00 to £50.00 depending on your current version.
Check Web site, email or ring for details.
New in version 5
Now reads Impression
Text files saved with styles from Impression are imported complete
with all formatting.
Style Editor
Rename, delete and search for styles. Change keyboard shortcut.
Improved HTML
Splits large documents into smaller documents when saving as
HTML with automatic forward/backward links and contents page.
Upgrade your SlartWrite or
TalkWrilc to EasiWriter professional
for just £60.00 inclusive.
Icon Technology Limited
Church House • Carlby • Stamford • Lines • PE9 4NB
Phone and Fax 01778 590563
http://www.icontechiiology.net
email: sales@IconTechnology.net
PhotoReal drivers
Dorset-based Spacetech has upgraded its
PhotoReal and plain paper drivers for BJC
7000-series colour ink-jet printers. A separate
extended printer control application has been
added to provide more choices regarding
quality vs. printing speed. This application
also provides the necessary tools for
maintaining the printer.
The extended printer control application
also allows you to choose between colour or
black & white printing and provides a choice
of two types of reproduction; graphic or
photographic. This last choice refers to two
alternative ink sets, calibrated for printing the
two different image types. For example, this
allows the photo cartridge to be used when
printing text or line-art material, or can be
used to improve the appearance of
photographs printed with the ordinary colour
cartridge.
Support for automatic and manual (flat
path) media feed has been added, as well as
support for a wide range of media type,
including plain paper, coated paper,
transparency, back print film, fabric sheet,
glossy paper, high gloss film, high resolution
paper, envelope, postcard and full-bleed
paper.
The speed and grade of printing may
be defined through 5 steps from draft
(ink saving) to fine (slow). Smoothing
may also be enabled or disabled.
Existing users will receive a free
upgrade. Spacetech are at:
http://www.spacetech.co.uk, tel:: 01305
822753
DIY meteorological
station gets Y2K update
Weather Reporter, the weather data logging station, which is a popular and familiar resource in
many schools around the country, has had an upgrade to ensure it is Year 2000 compliant. The
hardware measures most aspects of the weather, including wind speed, direction, temperature,
sunshine, daylight, rainfall and, optionally, pressure and humidity.
Data is stored in the Weather Reporter unit and for a maximum interval of 60 hours.
Within that time, teachers or students connect the host computer to download the data
which can then be analysed using a spreadsheet or a database, using standard file formats, like
CSV files.
The basic outfit is priced £395 + VAT. The pressure and humidity recording module is priced
£150 + VAT as an option. The complete package, including extra software is priced £550 + VAT.
The Weather Reporter is supplied by the Advisory Unit, Computers in Education, tel: 01707 266
714, email: sales@advisory-unit.org.uk
i-cubed cards return
Although i-cubed officially quit the Acorn market a few months ago, it's
popular range of Ethernet cards has been given a new lease of life by
Design IT in South Staffordshire, i-cubed EtherLan Ethernet cards will,
subject to the availability of components, continue to be manufactured by
the same electronic production company i-cubed have used for many
years, so the products should remain virtually identical.
Design IT takes over the customer support for new and existing
users of i-cubed cards. However, Design IT concede that their level of
support won't be as comprehensive as originally offered by i-cubed. From
1st May, Design IT take responsibility for handling all enquiries,
except those which relate to certain returns and repairs of their older
cards.
Curiously, Design IT has included a disclaimer that they have no plans
to provide additional support for the use of EtherLan cards on versions of
RISC OS later than 3.7. RISC OS 4 could be with us by the time you read
this story, though nobody expects there to be problems in any case.
Design IT, tel: 01902 894775, fax: 01902 894775, e-mail:
sales@dezignit.demon.co.uk, Web: http: / / www.dezignit.demon.co.uk
Friends of Fortran
Fortran, if you didn't already know, is a relatively old programming
language which used to be very popular with mathematicians and
physicists for performing complex calculations. It was also the language
out of which Basic was spawned. Fortran is a language which you either
love or hate.
Personally, I'm of the latter opinion, but Fortran still has many
supporters - even in the Acorn world. Fortran Friends is one such
example, and they have just announced an improvement to their Web site
at http:/ / www.argonet.co.uk/ users/ fortran/
Fortran Friends run a self-help group for Fortran programmers on RISC
OS machines and write complete applications for mathematical and
scientific problems. Demos of their popular 'polyhedra' display programs
Poh/Draw, Poli/Net (reviewed in Acorn User in June 1998) and Stellate
(reviewed in Acorn User September 1998) can be downloaded from the
Web site, as can the shareware LazyPrint which uses HPCL and PCL to
print text and drawfiles quickly to any Hewlett-Packard printer without
using '.Printers.
The Fortran utility libraries enabling Fortran programmers to call RISC
OS system functions are also available for downloading from the site. To
contact Fortran Friends, e-mail: fortran@argonet.co.uk
June 1999 http://www.acornuser.com
Size is everything when it comes to computer
monitors. Viewsonic's latest state-of-the-art
LCD monitor has an 18.1 in visible diagonal
measurement, which makes it equivalent to a
21 in conventional monitor. The VPD180
View Panel monitor has a 140 degree viewing
angle, 1280x1024 pixel resolution, 16.7 million
colour display capability and only consumes 45
watts of power.
It also supports the emerging all-digital
MDR standard for connecting to next-
generation display controllers, which means
there is no analogue degradation of the picture
quality. Size may be everything, but so is the
price, and at £2,595 + VAT, the VPD180 remains
an expensive luxury. But we're getting there!
RISC OS devotion
ArcSite is an Internet Web site devoted to all things
Acorn/ RISC OS. The new site, which is based in
Germany, could be described as a mini Internet
portal specialising in Acorn-related information. On
offer are free homepages, a Web based discussion
area, more than 700 Internet links, and a search
engine called ArcArchie.
Carlos Michael Santillan is the person behind all
this - so check out ArcSite at
http://www.arcsite.de/eindex.html [I've been using
this to search the ftp servers for a while now, and it's
very useful — Ed].
A NotePad for
your Series 5
Purple Software, the Psion software specialists, have
released NotePad - which is described as an
intelligent note taker for integrating information on
the Psion Series 5. NotePad can link notes to word
processor files, spreadsheets, databases, voice notes
and even Web addresses.
Purple suggest you can use NotePad as a contact
manager by linking notes to contacts in their
PowerBase database application, or even the basic
database built into the Series 5. A key attraction of
NotePad promises to be its search function - a feature
missing from the basic Series 5. Notepads can be
created and linked in a hierarchical order, making
them useful for keeping track of projects using dates
and alarms too. NotePad was originally developed by
Pelican Software and earlier versions have proven
popular in the US.
Purple are marketing Version 3 in the UK
and the rest of Europe. Purple Software, tel: 0171 387
7777, Web: http:/ / www.purplesoft.com
Acorn training in your sights?
Cambridge training company, Insight Training, is offering a pair of two-day training courses in June and
July aimed at anyone wanting to become proficient at Acorn software, hardware, systems maintenance
and upgrading. Course dates include 7-8th June and 5-6th July. For more information, contact Insight at
tel: 01223 812927. Their Web site is at http: / / www.argonet.co.uk/business/ insight/ or e-mail
insight@argonet.co.uk
New DrawWorks
for Wakefield
iSV is aiming to release a new version of
its popular DrawWorks package at this
year's Wakefield show, which takes place
on 1 5th-1 6th May - a few days after this
issue of Acorn User comes out. Aaron
Timbrell of iSV was keeping his cards
close to his chest prior to the show: 'I
cannot go into to much detail at this
stage as some features have not been
finalised, however I don't think it would
be unreasonable to describe it as a £200
package for well under £100/
That sounds like a shot across the
bows of Cerilica, who will also be
officially launching their ambitious
Vantage drawing package at Wakefield.
Aaron can be contacted via e-mail:
atimbrelI@aol.com
Newsgroups for kids
Richard Stevenson, Head of Tech and ICT
at Ballard School in Hampshire, has
announced the setting up of 2 Internet
newsgroups specially for children aged 7-
11 and 11-14. The newsgroups are
moderated using Rise PCs. For more
information, contact Richard via e-mail
at: rs@ballard.hants.sch.uk
Ink-jet cartridges
for charity
BIBIC, the British Institute for Brain
Injured Children, has extended its appeal
for the collection of spent ink-jet printer
cartridges. BIBIC is expanding its ink-jet
recycling project which has been running
successfully for the last year. Now, BIBIC
is distributing plastic bulk collection bags
for offices and other organizations where
several ink-jet printers are used.
The bags can be hung on a wall and
filled conveniently over time with spent
cartridges. There is also a separate
scheme for re-cycling laser printer
cartridges. If you would like to
participate in the scheme, call Erica on
01278 684060.
Last minute news
Just a quick mention of Microdigital's
new machine, also set to be launched at
Wakefield. The machine, targeted at
home and school users, should come
complete with an ARM7500FE, 16Mb
RAM (expandable to 256Mb) and - if a
licence is secured - RISC OS 4 in 5Mb of
flash memory.
They have also catered for those
users who wish to add to their machine;
two USB ports, two serial ports, a
parallel printer port, a MIDI port, audio
in, 16-bit audio out and a microphone
socket are all provided.
Look out for more information in the
Wakefield round-up in July's issue
http://www.acornuser.com June 1999
Six New
Computers?
Indeed there are, and you can read about them in the latest edition of Archive Magazine!
Archive contains...
• Hints & tips
• Articles for learners
• Information for the more technical
• Readers’ comments
• Averages over 45,000 words per issue
• Over 70 pages of articles
To: Archive Publications, 18 Mile End Road, Non/vich, NR4 7QY
Phone: 01603-441777 Fax: 460736 Email : info@archivemag.co.uk
Please send me the next two issues of Archive FREE OF CHARGE on the
understanding that (a) I have not subscribed to Archive before, (b) I have not
taken advantage of any other such free trial offer, and (c) if I do decide to take
out a subscription (£25 in UK, £30 Europe, £38 elsewhere), these two
magazines will be the first of the twelve issues for which I will be paying.
Name:
Address:
Send no money - just
send your address.
Or email your address to: Paul Beverley ; paul@archivemag.co.uk
DrawWorks
Millennium
We were expecting only one major graphics release
at the Wakefield show this year, however iSV are
doubling the fun with the launch of a vastly
updated DrawWorks Designer - renamed
DrawWorks Millennium. DrawWorks Designer was
certainly in the old-school mould of a 'vector
package' but producers iSV are now calling the
latest incarnation a full on 'design package',
theoretically pitting their software against Vantage.
There's no doubt that both packages overlap,
although iSV are targeting the home user who
perhaps doesn't require some of the more complex
print features of Vantage. Por us, the users, this is
great news. Competition in this fast growing area
can only fuel the development process.
For Cerilica and iSV it may be a little more
tricky. While many home users might possibly be
looking for something simpler in feature range
than Vantage, there's always a big portion of the
traditional Acorn market who want every possible
technical and professional
feature at their finger tips. And
on top of that, Vantage has been
designed very carefully with an
intuitive and easy to use
interface; it's certainly no
monster for novice users.
These new releases which
both rely heavily on Draw,
albeit in different ways, are at
least partially in competition,
and it's going to be very
interesting to chart their
progress over the coming
months. I'll be looking more at
DrawWorks Millennium next
issue. Contact iSV on 01344
455769.
Pic of the month
This month's reader's picture comes from sixteen
year old technical artist, Andrew Callicott. As
Andrew describes 'The pictures are all based on
model trains which I own. 1 began with the Class
90 in March 1997 at the age of 14 and completed
the latest, the Class 2800, in January just gone.
'Some of the details are not quite as you would see
on the real McCoy as the models are limited in that
respect. Each drawing took about 10 hours to
complete using a non-upgraded Rise PC 600.'
Many thanks to Andrew for this unusual entry.
Keep the pictures coming in and watch out for
some news on an update of the usual monthly
prize soon.
Art or national
curriculum?
In response to suggestions from their
educational user base, AVP has produced
an improved and updated version of the
popular Art in the National Curriculum
CD. Billed by the company as '...a
systematic introduction to topics and
artists, concentrating on images needed
to understand and appreciate the
richness of our diverse cultural heritage',
the CD has now been enhanced with
more pictures, greater detail and even
some video snippets.
It is a very large subject base to
tackle with one CD, hut the more
classical elements are certainly very
worthy of additional coverage in our
schools. Of particular note are the
English landscapes and human face
sections which include a very wide range
of depictions throughout the history of
art. For further information, check out
the Web site at http://www.avp.co.uk or
contact AVP on 01291 625439.
The show
Two shows should be down in the
budding RISC OS artist's calendar for this
year, beginning with the now infamous
Wakefield outing this month. With both
Vantage and DrawWorks Millennium
debuting at the Yorkshire show', this
cannot be missed.
On a slightly different tack is the
Royal College of Art's 'The Show',
running from 26th of May to the 4th of
July in London. The Rector of the Royal
College of Art, Professor Christopher
Frayling says 'The show' this year
demonstrates that the College will
continue to enrich all our lives in the
next century....with over 6000 pieces on
display, visitors will be glimpsing their
tomorrow's today.'
Despite the inevitable Millennium
hype that seems to be bombarding us
from all directions, this collection of such
a wide range of art from around the
world, including features on computer
related design, should provide something
for everyone. More information on the
College Web site at http://www.rca.ac.
uk/ or by telephone on 0171 590 4444.
Thin
Clients
• Low cost per unit
• Low maintenance
•Reliable
•Compact
•Very flexible
•Centralises maintenance at the Server
•Can be used as RiscOS or Windows
Terminals or Both!
Acorn Network computers when used in conjunction with
a LanServer or NT Server can be used as economic RiscOS
terminals which offer performance, security and much
reduced maintenance since all services are provided from a
central server.
Standard features:
NFS, PC File server
with disc quota’s
POP3, SMTP, IMAP4
Mail Server
NNTP News Server
Web/Proxy Server
FTP Server
Printer server
Internet dial-on-demand
using ISDN or modem
Dial-in modem access
WWW Server Tools
... Plus many more.
Introducing a WinFrame/MetaFrame Mutli-user Windows
server allows NC's, using the Citrix ICA Client from
Acorn, to run Windows NT4. Again, all resources are
located centrally at the server offering the same level of
central management. Why install Windows or RiscOS
software on EVERY workstation when you can simply
install it once on the Server.
Ring us now to arrange a demonstration.
Telnet
’rogrammlnj
Other Remote Networks
ie. schools, branch offices
RiscOS & PC
Kj Network Computers
Citrix 1
Remote
Computing
Superb w jd
Colour
Lasers Jr~
Phaser 740L £1175
A4 16ppm Mono Parallel/1 OBaseT
Network Laser Printer.
Colour upgradeable.
Phaser 740N £1645
A4 16ppm 1200dpi Mono, 5ppm
600dpi Colour Parallel/1 OBaseT
Network Laser Printer.
Phaser 740P £2400
MetaFrame
yS Server
RiscOS, PC Windows
Apple & Unix
Desktop Computers
Web
Computing
Wireless Terminals and
PDA’s etc.
CITRIX
Robust, Reliable
Economic
& Flexible
LinServer - An Internet Gateway & File Server
running LINUX (UNIX® for PC's) which supports
PC, NC & RiscOS Computers HpilllllpilIB
LinServer is an incredibly robust
and dependable File, Print &
Internet Gateway server providing
virtually every internet resource
which doesn't cost the Earth!
There are NO licensing issues on lay[
the number of users supported. EQ
LinServer supports over 10,000
users, the limit being only storage
capacity and RAM.
It is possible to have
a Server with ALL
these attributes!
It supports PC's, Network &
43B£> RiscOS computers. You can
literally place this server in a
— secure room and forget about
it, being almost completely self
maintaining except for user
administration.
Contact us now to arrange
a demonstration.
Tektronix
A Citrix® WinFrame or MetaFrame Server provides access to
virtually any Windows® application, across any type of network
connection to any type of client (including Thin-Clients &
RiscOS). It allows multiple, concurrent users to log on and run
applications in separate, protected Windows sessions ON the
server, resulting in each user consuming as little as one-tenth of
their normal network bandwidth.
A4 16ppm 1200dpi Mono, 5ppm
600dpi Colour Parallel/1 OBaseT
Network Laser Printer.
Phaser 780N £4200
A3 8ppm 1200dpi Mono, 2ppm 600dpi
Colour Parallel/l OBaseT Laser Printer.
It gives you centralised management, exceptional performance
and improved security for all your education/business critical
applications and data.
Ring us now for further information or call into our showroom
for a demonstration.
Suitable for ALL RiscOS Computers
£5 Inc VAT
Tel: 0161-474 0778 - Fax: 0161-474 0781
Open 10.00 - 18.00 Monday - Saturday
All prices Include VAT. Carriage not included. E&OE. 230499
www.desktopp.demon.co.uk - email: info@desktopp.demon.co.uk
Unit 2A Heapriding Business Park, Ford Street, STOCKPORT, Cheshire. SK3 OBT
n the script?
Is it i
JavaScript Fresco© has finally arrived, but a
vocal section of ANT customers have the feeling
that the flagship Web browser for Acorncomputers
might be renamed Fiasco. Most ANT Internet Suite
owners have been waiting months for the
promised JavaScript and Secure Sockets Layer
upgrades that should make Fresco almost as usable
as the Windows alternatives.
Recently there's been a lamentable lack of
communication by both ANT Ltd and latterly-
appointed sales and support agents, Argo
Interactive. There's been no sign of the SSL upgrade
and many of ANT's beta-testers haven't even had
the chance to try the JavaScript version of Fresco
prior to its release. However it's now shipping, and
users are finding out what works and what doesn't.
Fresco actually implements ECMAScript, a
standards-based clone of Netscape Corporation's
JavaScript 1.1 client-side scripting language. This
should mean that any script which works correctly
with Netscape 3 will work with Fresco. In practice,
you're just as likely to get a script error from the
new Fresco as you are from Internet Exploder. It's a
case of "whose standard it it anyway"?
While R-Comp's Javascript WebsterXL can
measure up the Modem Speed test pages at
http://homepage.tinet.ie/~leslie/testpage.htm,
ECMAScript Fresco does not respond. Still, many
of the demonstration scripts available from
http://javascript.internet.com/ do work, and there
are more useful working script resources at
http://www.javascript.com/.
The page at http://the-light.com/colclick.html
does work well, and it allows you to choose
Netscape text and background colours for Web
pages by pointing to the dot of the desired colour
and reading off the values displayed. These values
change as you move the pointer over the colour
swatch. You then cut-and-paste the code segment
into your page - an action regrettably not yet
supported by Fresco.
The ANT Internet Suite JavaScript upgrade is
available to existing owners for £22.95 excl. VAT.
Argo Interactive
E-mail: sales@argonet.co.uk
Tel: 01243 815 815
Beyond the desktop
If you've set up a few Internet accounts with the
free ISPs, you may be wondering how to fill up all
that free Web space. A user with two Freeserve
accounts and two FreellK accounts could have
about 80Mb of server
space waiting to be filled.
One idea is to use this Net-
distributed disc-space as a
security backup area for
your precious harddisc
data.
You could create
archive files of your
important documents and
directories, and upload
them by FTP to your
various Web spaces. There
are simple measures you
can take so that no-one but you will be able to list
the directories and their contents, and you'll still
have plenty of room for your Web site as well if
you cross-link all the pages and Web spaces with
complete URLs.
Most Web servers are set by default to send out
an index file in preference to a directory listing
when no file is specified at the end of the URL, so
placing a simple index.html file in a directory
effectively hides the other contents from prying
eyes. Only you who have FTP access to the site
will know what files are in
there.
The docSpace company
has expanded this idea and
offers file storage space
and a browser-based filer
interface, complete with
secure transfer protocol
for uploading and
downloading files to your
free virtual 50Mb docSpace
Drive. Acorn users with
SSL-enabled Browse can set
all this up and retrieve
their files, but unfortunately Browse cannot upload
files as it does not support file upload from HTML
forms. Ironically, this is a feature of the new
ECMAScript Fresco, but it still doesn't have SSL!
Checkmate?
The docSPACE Company Inc.
http://www.docspace.com
Home free with
Clares ISDN
Following their successful Rise PC
Internet offer featuring an internal
modem and a Freeserve Internet
account, Clares Micro Supplies have
introduced an ISDN alternative. The
£199 (inc. VAT) package includes an
external ZyXel ISDN Terminal adapter,
all the required software, pre-registration
to Freeserve, and free installation of BT
Home Highway (normally £99+VAT) or
ISDN2e (normally £199+VAT - but see
below).
R-Comp's JavaScript-capable
WebsterXL browser is included along
w ith the best of Acorn freeware for
Internet access, plus Clares' ow n easy
configuration system.
Clares Micro Supplies
Tel: 01606 833999
E-mail: sales@claresmicro.com
Ahoy there!
Daniel Garrod's Jolly Roger Bulletin
Board is back, ready to be plundered
by the next generation of comms
enthusiasts, jolly Roger BBS is located
in Harlton, Cambridgeshire, heart of
Silicon Fen. Dan and his co-sysops
Nigel Callcutt and Gareth Griffiths are
sailing ahead with the re-launched
ArmBBS system, uploading files,
games and features. Available booty
includes Psion Series 3m downloads
from CD-ROM, with other cargo for all
makes of computer, ranging from
Acorn to Linux. Free e-mail and
access from the Internet are on the
horizon.
lolly Roger BBS
Modem: 01223-264347
Web: http://wmv.bigwig.net/jollyroger/
Highway low way
British Telecom has announced a
range of special offers on second lines
and digital connections from April
1st until June 30th. Second analogue
line installation drops to half price at
£49.50 inc. VAT, and there's £50
excl. VAT connection or conversion
charges for digital services BT Highway
and ISDN2. BT is obviously worried
that its over-priced legacy convert-to-
digital vision will be eclipsed by
the cable companies' high-speed
"always-on" Internet services,
using new cable modem and DSL
technologies.
BT Web site: http://www.bt.com
Tel: 0800 222444
http://www.acornuser.com June 1999
3.5" IDE Hard Discs Public Domain, Shareware and other low cost hardware and software for Acorn computers
LO
OO
IDE Hard Discs
Drive
Plus i/face
210 Mb
£39
£81
420 Mb
£49
£87
540 Mb
£59
£107
250 Mb
£65
£112
1.2 Gb
£72
£119
2.1 Gb
£93
£140
2.5 Gb
£97
£144
3.2 Gb
£99
£146
4.2 Gb
£112
£159
5.1 Gb
£116
£162
6.3 Gb
£121
£169
8.2 Gb
£131
£178
10 Gb
£153
£200
12.4 Gb
£189
£236
18.8 Gb
5'/4" £249
£296
'Plus i/ face’ price includes an
APDL fast IDE interface.
Part-exchange available if
you need a bigger drive .
Please phone for prices.
2.5" IDE Hard Discs
A3020
3010/3000
30 Mb
£36
£79
60 Mb
£49
£92
80 Mb
£56
£99
120 Mb
£63
£106
170 Mb
£72
£119
210 Mb
£79
£122
250 Mb
£84
£127
330 Mb
£94
£137
420 Mb
£99
£145
512 Mb
£120
£170
1.4 Gb
-
£178
2.1 Gb
-
£197
A30 10/3000 includes APDL IDE
interface , A3020 includes fitting kit
SCSI Hard Discs
210 Mb
£30
420 Mb
h/h
£55
540 Mb
£68
1 Gb
£79
4.2 Gb
h/h
£159
4.2 Gb
£175
8.7 Gb
h/h
£299
'h/h ’ indicates half-height approx
V /2 inches high , others are I " high.
IDE CD ROM drives
Internal
Drive with all cables and drivers
for RO 3.6+ where required
36x £47
40x £49
Drive including APDL IDE interface
36x £94
40x £96
External
Drive in case with power supply and
including an APDL IDE interface.
Probably the best way to fit a CI) to a
pre - RISC-PC machine.
36x £151
40x £153
CD ROM driver software
Works with most ATAPI CDs eg.. Pioneer
Goldstar, Panasonic, Lite-on, Mitsumi,
Sony, Hitachi, NEC, Toshiba, Sanyo, etc.
Includes CDFS for use with RO 3.5.
Intended for RPC but can be used with
an A5000. Only £8 or £7 with a drive
RiscPC and A7000 RAM
8 Mb
£8
16 Mb
£29
32 Mb
£54
32 Mb High Clearance
£62
64 Mb from
£89
128 Mb from
£179
2 Mb VRAM
£69
1 Mb to 2 Mb exchange
£47
Datafile PD CDs
PD CD - 3
£7.50
PD CD - 4
£10.50
PD CD - 5
£7.50
Various games
Emotions (RPC only)
£14.95
Flying High (RPC only)
£14.95
Fire and Ice (not S/Ann)
£8.50
Hero Quest (not S/Arm)
£7.50
Quest for Gold
£6.00
Starfighter 3000
£10.00
Association of
Shareware
Protouonoto
The PO Library
[itTS2ad£$j
Datafile
Prices include VAT and UK carriage except hard drives add £5 for internal drives, £8 external
This is only a fraction of what wc have available. We also have thousands of discs PD and Shareware and around 500 discs of
Acorn format clip art. For a full catalogue on 800K or 1.6Mb disc please send 50p or two 1st class stamps or see our web site.
APDL, 39 Knighton Park Road, Sydenham, London SE26 5RN ■■■■
Phone: 0181 778 2659 Fax: 0181 488 0487 www.apdl.co..uk/ 'mSm
m
APDL
APDL
DTP-1
DTP-3
APDL Public Domain, Clip Art and other CDs
PD-1
only £12.50
only £17.50
The best PD CD from the best PD library. Over 1,800 programs and utilities,
more than 100 novels, etc. No games, clip art, music, or other non-serious stuff. . o/>n
PQO Around 700 games and novelties, over 250 games cheats and over 200 demos, Both fOT jUSt £22
plus over 2,000 music files and more than 550 digitised sound samples. only £1 2 50
and DTP-2 E “ ch have oyer 500Mb of clip art file* allready to use in Acorn on | y £9.90 each
Draw, Sprite or Artworks format. Ideal for use in education. wi ny cav ' 1 1
The third highly acclaimed APDL clip art CD. More than 720Mb of material. Great
for schools or anyone who needs a huge collection of clip art at a sensible price.
DTP-1 plus DTP-2 plus DTP-3, just £34.50
Our new clip art CD. Over 12,000 clip art files, plus more than 400 Artworks files and
170 high quality colour pictures. All catalogued and complete with thumbnail images
A collection of twenty of the best PD games of all types. Ready to run direct
from the CD on almost any machine. Hours of fun for an unbeatable price.
CD 2 Our Games Collection No. 1 CD was so popular we've done it again,
vaai I ICO vU a Another twenty of the best best games at a real budget price.
QLi illcrtft r'/'kllA/'tinn ^ 8 rea l l )U( 4i ct priced games CD from APDL. Full versions of
OKUIIoUl I OOlieCIIOn three popular games from Skullsoft, !Arya, IXenocide and IPlig
Qnft Rnrlf Pnllontirm S‘ x c * ass ‘ c 8 ames from Soft Rock Software, plus a new version of
OUI I nLH/A ooneciion iTrellis, the adventure game creator/interpreter with two adventures
DTP-4
Games CD 1
Fantasy Pictures
Education
By request from our customers, the pictures from the Fantasy section
of the APDL catalogue. Lots of Sword ’n Sorcery pics and many others
A CD from APDL especially for schools. Has all the things we know
you want. More than 5,000 Acorn format clip art images, hundreds
of e-texts, over 300 popular and useful programs, and lots more.
Pictures, databases, information on stars, planets, moons, space
missions, etc. etc. A massive amount of data at a realistic price.
Geographical database with a huge variety of data and statistics on
every country. Simple menu-based interface. Including !Earthmap
Have you got what it takes to become a Wizard? 100 levels of
this great game with superb graphics and sound. RISC-PC only
. New version now has eight games. AlfaXL5, Pharoahs Secret Tombs,
tpCK&MZOW/ LsC&CCfrts Last Cybermoch, Sea Trek, Caves of Confusion, Robocatch, and two
collection new additions, Gold Run and Jewels of Jezabar. Also available on disc.
Earth in Space
Earth Data
Wizard Apprentice
only £19.50
only £7.90
only £7.90
only £9.90
only £9.90
only £7.90
£16.50
Ten for just £79
only £9.90
only £9.90
£14.95
£16.50
APDL ideA fast IDE interface
General software
• No complicated setting up. It's self-configuring so just plug it in!
• Uses DMA (Direct Memory Access) on Rise PC. Over twice as fast as the
built in IDF interface or others which don't use DMA.
• Includes CDFS and ATAPI CD drivers for many popular CD ROMs.
• Four devices, any combination of CDs and hard drives.
• Up to 8 partitions, so you can have large drives on pre RO 3.6 machines
• Software in flash EEPROM for easy update (including VProtect).
• Supports the new range of Syquest SparQ low cost 1Gb removable drives.
• Connectors are available for external drives or CD ROMs
• Fits A3 10, A400, A5000, A540, A7000 and any RiscPC.
All these features for the incredibly low price of just £52
A version for the A3000, A4000, A3010 or A3020 is available with all the
above features. Supports two internal and two external devices - £67
APDL Paralell Port Syquest drive
The 1Gb SparQ drive is the ideal solution for hacking up larger hard drives
where old technology like a Zip drive just isn't realistic. Big enough to hold lots!
“ " RISC-C
of data, and w ith our software you aren't restricted to just RISC-OS 3.6+ but I
can use it on any machine with a bi-directional printer port including the ]
A5000, A3010 etc. as well. With Acorn and DOS driver software, just £199
Ancestry +
We've promised it before, but it's available at last! The long awaited successor
to Graham Crow's highly popular genealogy program Ancestry, previously sold)
by Minerva. Upgrades from Ancestry 1 and Ancestry 2 are available. Can use
Ancestry 1 files and we're working on a converter for Ancestry 2. Only £59
ACE 586 PC cards
Faster PC - £20 The alternative XT Pel
emulator. Works on any model with 2Mb|
RAM from A3000 to Strong ARM RPC.
PowerBase - £15 Popular extremely
powerful but very easy to use database. With|
examples, tutorials and printed manuals.
Better than most products costing many
times the price. Does everything that 99% ol
database users w ill ever need.
MenuBar - £15 The very best pull-down|
menu system. An absolute essential for an;
hard disc user. You can switch between up tol
30 different menu bars. Incredibly easy to set
up, add items to menus, move them, etc.
Tiger - £15 Lets you use very long!
descriptive filenames. Unlike some products
this is very robust as it works in parallel with
the filer so can't corrupt discs.
WorkTop - £15 Switch between up to 30]
different environments with a single mouse
click. Stars the tasks you require, opens
directories, loads files, changes screen mode.]
Just like moving to another computer,
essential productivity tool.
Works with most games. Podule with
joystick £42 Extra joysticks £6 each.
Available with 128K cache from just £199 or 51 2K cache from £299. We can]
offer a trade in against your old card, which makes it even cheaper. GoodH
performance for Windows at a sensible APDL price.
Connect 32 fast SCSI
We have a limited number of these very fast
interfaces (up to 7.5 Mb/sec) at only £109
Data Safe • A new concept in backup and data security
® o §
a*
l
K
Data O SAFE
A new idea from APDL, Data Safe consists of an external case to hold a 3.5" IDE
hard drive, connected to your machine's printer port. This gives a large capacity
portable drive, movable between machines and locations. Ideal for backup, secure
data storage and transport. The filer has all the features of our ideA card so you
can partition drives, password protect partitions, etc. Great for schools. Supply
your own drive or we'll fit one for you.
Data Safe Super has the drive fitted in a removable drawer. You can fit a similar
drawer to your Rise PC (best if you use our IDE card) and then just unplug the
drive from the RPC and transfer data to another machine using the Data Safe.
Prices start at £104 or with a 3.2Gb drive from just £199
Usage
With the desktop of the average user being filled
with an array of utilities and mini-applications that
clutter up your iconbar before you've even
touched the mouse, it can be rather useful to know
exactly how efficient these programs are. Sloppy
programming behind the scenes can leave an
innocent and professional-looking program to soak
up needless Wimp polls and put a real drag on
desktop speed.
To identify the usual suspects, programmer
Martin Avison has created a pretty comprehensive
Task Usage application. As Martin describes The
idea grew from a theory that some tasks seemed to
take more processing
power than they should,
either permanently or
intermittently, making
the desktop sluggish.
The main causes seem
to be simple
programming mistakes,
or programmers being
lazy, and ignoring the
exhortation in the
Programmer's
Reference manual, page
3-116:
You can disable some of the event codes: they are
neither checked for nor returned, and need not have any
handlers provided. You must do this for as many codes
as possible, especially the Null_Reason_Code, if your
task is to run efficiently under the Wimp/
Wise words, but occasionally not heeded by the
novice programmer. Using the application and
finding out who the culprits are is a relatively
simple process. Task Usage provides a realtime
barchart that estimates the processor usage of each
application and module task running on
the machine. This has been done before by
Acorn's rather simple Usage application and
Ran Mokady's program of the same name.
Martin's application takes the principle
much further with a Task Reason Code
usage window, providing information as to
what kind of work each task is doing. You
can click on any application in the processor
usage window and the Task Reason Code
window provides a break down of the work
done by that task.
While typing away to write this article 1 can see
that despite not
even having a
window open,
Connector is taking
quite a nasty chunk of
processor time, and
that it's actually
polling the Wimp
about 600 times a
second...
It has to be
said that analysis
of this kind is
never particularly
accurate. However, Task Usage docs seem
remarkably good at spotting the inefficient
programs on the desktop.
Hopefully Task Usage will provide us with a
valuable tool to improve the quality of our
software, rather than starting a Wimp Poll witch-
hunt. Still, it'll certainly be interesting to see the
reaction of certain developers when they see their
apps running alongside Task Usage. Download it
from http://www.avisoft.force9.co.uk
Acorn Arcade news
Acorn Arcade have done much in their 14
month long support of the PD games scene,
and they're continuing this drive for low cost
games with a new voting system. As A A Editor
fountain describes 'Basically we're hoping
to get people to tell us their 10 favourite PD
games, we can then compile a league of games,
and give 'awards' to the top ones.' Interested
readers can e-mail a list of their top games
to tim@acornarcade.com or browse to the
Web page voting form at http://www.
acornarcade.com/features/misc/league/vote.html
Also new on Acorn Arcade is 'The Coding
Vault', described by the team as 'basically a joint
venture with VOTI to try and get coders to finish
off abandoned games to which we have the
sources.' It's a great idea to try an revive stalling
games projects, but it is unfortunate that it's had to
come to this. If you want to check out the
development possibilities available, or even add to
the vault, you can browse to http:/ /www.
acornarcade.com/ features/ codevault/
CodeCraft
Post-Evolution, the (lento scene has
been typically quiet while the
demo teams catch up with the rest
of their work and begin to consider
new projects. Alain Brobecker's
CodeCraft competition is already
getting things going again with a great
deal of success, and it's great to see
the competition mentality taking
hold of the RISC OS community.
At the time of writing Paul
Thompson, Augustin Vidovic, Pervect,
Dennis Ranke, Stanislas Renan,
David Schalig, David Gamble and
of course a coder who surely must be
a favourite for this kind of competition,
Frederic Elisei, are all getting
involved. An impressive list of coders
at this stage - I can't wait to see the
entries for the competition. For more
information you'll need to browse over
to http://www.cybercab!e.
tm.fr/~brooby/
Check out my analysis of
the competition and entries next
month. Respect to Alain and all
the guys involved in the project
for keeping things moving on the
scene. Watch out for the Evolution
competition results in next
months magazine.
Emulating us
Among all the discussion over the
future of our platform little has been
said (unless I'm much mistaken) about
the emulation of our OS on other
platforms. It's hardly a secure future,
but it's certainly a very interesting area
which deserves a bit more attention
from the user base.
Various projects are in the pipeline
including Archie at http://www.
geocities.com/SiliconValley/Campus/542
7/ a system in progress at http://w\vw.
geocities.com/SiliconValley/Network/494
6/marchi.hlm and an emulator for Linux
at ftp://ftp.compsoc.man.ac.uk:/pub/
arceni/
I'll hopefully be covering the
developments in more detail soon and I'd
also love to hear your views on this area
of work.
Elite again
Plans are afoot to produce a
Freeware follow up to Elite. Taking
into account legal problems, and the
obvious difficulty of producing a game
that could meet the quality criteria for
such an ambitious project, it's not going
to he an easy ride. For more information
you can point your browser to the
project site at http://www.jades.
org/tep/default.htm
http://www.acornuser.com June 1999
RISC OS
Following my comments on the future of RISC
OS several people have been in touch to add
to the discussion. Among them, author of the
excellent IClear module, Martyn Fox. As
Martyn states 'I have always maintained that
the job of IClear could be done much better by
the RISC OS kernel than by a module. IClear
works by intercepting mouse clicks and key-
presses and by sending messages to
applications which are themselves intercepted
by a filter. I've been pleased by the fact that
this works for nearly all applications, but there
is always the possibility of encountering an
program that doesn't like it, or of it interacting
adversely with another piece of software.
'IClear is also limited to inverting an
entire icon and replacing all the text in it.
The RISC OS kernel handles caret movement,
and text entering and deletion in writable
icons. If the kernel did the job of IClear,
it could invert and replace a single word,
the entire text or a section selected by
dragging the mouse or by using the select and
adjust buttons - a feature that could also be
made available to applications such as text
editors.
'As I've said many times, I made IClear
freely available in the hope that it would be
widely used and that consequently Acorn
would take note and incorporate it as
described above. I was a trifle disappointed at
last year's Acorn South East show to be told
by Chris Cox that this had not happened with
RISC OS 4.'
An all too familiar story from Acorn I'm
afraid, but we've yet to see whether RISCOS
Ltd will learn from the mistakes of the past.
Please get in touch with your views on the
future of RISC OS. What should be
incorporated into our OS? What important
changes need to be made to keep the RISC OS
scene alive?
PsiFS
I I PsiFS Documentation IVersion 1 .CO (27-Mar-99» |
PsiFS: Internal s Documents
IEC61508
Size 6M Bytes
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Address book
File ’Address book’
Alexander Thoukydides has just released another
useful freeware utility that helps to integrate
other operating systems with RISC OS. This time it
is the turn of Psion's EPOC16 and EPOC32, which
are used in the Acorn Pocketbook and Psion
Series 5.
PsiFS is a filing system that provides full access
to the drives of an EPOC device connected via a
serial link. It provides similar functionality to
Interconnex's PsiRisc, but with the vital difference
that it is completely free. PsiFS does not contain
any file converters, but it does implement an
intelligent read-ahead cacheing of directories that
makes it significantly faster than PsiRisc in use, it
also allows changes made to files on the EPOC
device to be automatically refreshed in any filer
windows.
When a link has been successfully established,
an icon is added to the left-hand side of the
iconbar for each accessible drive. These behave like
any other drive icon; a single click opens a normal
filer window that allows files to be copied by drag-
and-drop, or loaded into a RISC OS editor by
simply double-clicking. It could hardly be simpler.
Download it from http://homepages.tcp.
co.uk/~thouky/tcfp.html
L£
1
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o
Veralcm 1.00 <27.Mar-99)
Introduction
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link to lha fife* tiowJ on in £P0C computet. Ihe
Hjrvl.ci) link Pn>ti*nl (PLP) f* utcd; ihow it no
ovtrj wxtvL.ttt- in inujll ik run on the rmvxc matbirv.
| l | «l - W
2 1 :0 Bonnie :0 Apps RomDrive Internal
June 1999 http://www.acornuser.com
Holiday '98 Holiday '99 Voice notes
□ so
Notes Extra My Settings
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Robot Wars
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Used SMBytes M
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EPOC to RISC OS
file transfer is easy
Caves
Matthew Wilson has just released a new
PD game described by himself as 'an
obstacle course/shoot-the-aliens/puzrie
game, with 40 levels.' The game can be
downloaded from the Web at
http://www. vvillson68.freeserve.co.uk
If anyone would like to comment on,
review, host or distribute the game,
Matthew can be contacted at
willsons@x-stream.co.uk
Multi-ISP
Free ISPs - there are loads of
them available, so how many have
you got? Two, three, four? If you
reguarly use more than one provider
you'll find Multi-ISP by Richie
Whincup an invaluable application.
It allows easy changing between up
to four ISPs using the ANT Suite,
and works by copying the contents
of the Files Directory into Multi-ISP
and replacing them with the
selected Provider information.
It can be iounri on the cover
disc
Contacting Me J
You can contact the PD page by
writing to me, Paul Wheatley, at
Acorn User, Tau Press Ltd, Media
House, Adlington Park,
Macclesfield, SK10 4NP. Or
preferably, by e-mail (but no large
files) to pdpage@acornuser.com
V The names you can trust for all
CUMANA your computer requirements.
The best name in memory
ALL PRICES INCLUDE VAT
Visit us at the Wakefield Show on Stand 19
'Peak Performer' A7000+ computer with 8Mb RAM, 2Gb HD,
32 speed CD ROM, 14" (High definition) monitor, 12 month on-site warranty and
either 'Foundation' or 'Extreme' software pack.
£880.08 inc vat
'Web Wizard' StrongArm RiscPC computer with 34Mb RAM, 1.7Gb Hard Disc,
24 speed CD ROM, 56K modem, ANT Internet Suite & Web browsing software,
upgraded with 15" monitor.
[Please note : you will need a phone point & Internet Service Provider for internet use of this system
£1380.08 inc vat
15" (High definition) stereo monitor upgrade to 14" and 15" systems £82.25 inc vat
17" (High definition) monitor upgrade to 14" and 15" systems £141.00 inc vat
Place your orders now for RISCOS 4 with us.
£ 99.00 -»- vat (£116.33 inc.)
Fitting and installation service available, please call for details.
We have been specialists in the Acorn Educational market for 15 years.
Call us now for all your educational needs & integration of networks.
Whatever your needs or budget we can help with Leasing / Educational accounts / Cheques or Credit & Debit cards.
rpm® ss |
AUTHORISED RESELLER
CiTRIX
THIN CLIENT TECHNOLOGY
See a demo on Stand 19 at
the Wakefield show
Thin Client Technology - and Independent Computing Architecture (ICA)
This is a new system to provide cross-platform software compatibility with low client station capital and running
costs, whilst providing higher levels of reliability. To explain, you need a network infrastructure, an NT server and
any number of Thin Client computers, or Network Computers (NCs). All the Thin Clients are controlled from a
central NT server (or servers), which hold user configurations that are centrally administered and thus client
systems cannot be re-configured locally; this minimises client station problems. As NCs have no floppy disc drive
it is impossible to introduce viruses or indeed pirate software from these client stations. Other standard desktop
computers can also be added to the system if required and these can comprise a mix of Acorns, AppleMacs and
PCs. Thin Clients is a cost effective way of extending the useful life of your existing Acorn computers, many of
which will probably be mechanically sound for a good few years yet. Any schools or individuals who are interested
in receiving our "ICT Planning Document" please contact us on the below numbers and we will post a copy to you.
The Acorn NC (Network Computer)
'Sprinter' - NC (Network Computer), client station
with 16Mb RAM, QWERTY Keyboard, Mouse & 14"monitor
(suitable for Acorn RiscOS, Windows, Internet & Web browsing applications)
£379.00 + VAT (£445.33 inc.)
[Please note : NCs require connection and configuration to host server, locally or remotely]
'ICDBIaze' CD-R Software
E69.99+VAT £82.23 inc vat
**New* ** for Wakefield Show,
IDE CDR and CDRW Support now with ICDBIaze.
See Stand 1 9 for details.
Plus new drivers to allow CDR and CDRW
to be read under Acorn CDFS.
See our Web page for CDR/W drive prices.
< M Magi color 2 DeskLaser Plus 600x600 DPI,
24Mb ram colour laser with cable and Acorn driver.
£1195.00 + VAT (£1404.13 inc.)
AUTHORISED REtlllER
Trade & Educational
customers are welcome. CITRIX
Please call for separate prices on
both Acorn and Cumana equipment.
Call us now on Tel +44 (0)1279-730800/730900 Fax +44(0)1279-730809. sales@cumana.co.uk, www.cumana.demon.co.uk
Cumana is a trading name of : Cannon Computing, Whitegate, Dunmow Road, Hatfield Heath,
Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, CM22 7ED. Partners: Nigel D. & Sara L. Cannon. AU/June '99. Without Prejudice.
All Registered Trademarks acknowledged. All prices are UK £ sterling &, unless otherwise stated, include VAT, exclude delivery. E&OE.
Business and Utilities
Ant Internet Suite II 110.51
ArcFax 35.00
ArcFS2 29.37
ARCshare 49.95
Artworks 104.69
CD Burn 58.75
Complete Animator 94.05
DataPower 1 110.00
DataPower 2 1 66.32
DaVinci 90 81 .08
Digital Symphony 56.95
Disc Doctor 28.45
Disc Rescue 45.00
Draw Works Designer 31 .50
Easy C++ 116.32
EasyFont Pro 59.95
Eureka 3 110.51
FastSpool+ 17.62
Fireworkz Pro 166.31
Font Directory Pro 65.00
FontFX6 29.95
Game On! 2 15.00
Holy Bible (lllus.) BP(KJV) 82.25
HTML Edit 4 53.00
ImageFS 2 44.59
IMaster & TWAIN Driver 35.00
Impact Pro 139.53
Impression Publisher 136.41
Impression Style 83.54
LanMan98 41.12
MellDI 129.00
MIDI Synthesizer 46.94
Midi Works 151.95
MovieFS 29.95
OHP (Presentation) 29.95
Ovation Pro 158.62
P'rllel port Zip driver (Argo) 34.08
PC Pro2 39.00
Personal Accounts V4 49.00
Photo Link 65.55
Photo Real (Canon/Epson) 65.86
Photodesk 3 299.50
ProArtisan 24 (RPC Only) 89.95
Prophet 3 179.77
Rhapsody 4 94.95
Schema 2 121.50
Sibelius 6 116.00
Sibelius 7 699.00
Sibelius 7 Student 345.00
Sleuth 3 116.32
SparkFS 25.00
StrongGuard 25.00
Studio Sound 113.95
Tablemate Designer 60.00
TopModel2 145.11
Turbodrivers (Can/HP/Eps) 54.69
WebSpider 40.00
WebTool for ANT Suite 2 29.38
WIMP Basic 44.99
Win95FS 41.12
XStitch 2 35.00
EDUCATION
Animated Alphabet, Talk 33.43 |
Arc Venture (various) 39.01
Aztecs, Age 7-11 50.17 1
Calabash Pirates 25.98
Crystal Rain Forest 50.17
DataSweet 3 69.33 |
Dazzle + 83.71
Dinosaurs (1 0/1 0) 1 3.49 I
Doodle 32.37
English (10/10) 13.49
Essential Maths (10/10) 13.49
Essential Science 13.49
Expl with Flossy the Frog 28.79
First Logo 38.95
Freddy Teddy's Adventure 23.50
French (10/10) 13.49
Fun School 3/4 (various) 24.99
Geography (1 0/1 0) 1 3.49 |
German (10/10)
13.49 ■
Granny's Garden
28.79 1
James Pond Run. Water
27.00 I
Maths (Geometry) (10/10)
13.49 1
Maths (Number) (10/10)
13.49 1
Mega Maths
24.99 1
Micro Maths
24.99 I
My World 2 + 2
54.70 1
Naughty Stories Vols 1-6
44.65 I
New Teddy Bear’s Picnic
36.78 1
Nursery Rhyme Time
33.43 I
Oxford Reading Tree 3
44.65 1
Pendown DTP
65.85 1
Playdays age 3-8
23.40 1
Playground (Freddy teddy) 23.50 ■
1 Smudge the Spaniel
25.98 ■
Spelling & Punctuation
13.49 1
Splosh+ (1-5 users)
51 .70 1
Table Aliens
27.85 1
TinyDraw/TinyLogo
29.37 I
Tizzy’s Toybox
47.94 ■
Watch Magic Grandad
30.13 ■)
GAMES
Alone in the Dark
34.99 I
Anagram Genius
20.00 1
BHP Brutal Horse Power
28.49 I
Birds of War t
30.00 1
Black Angel
30.00 1
Carnage Inc.
22.50 1
Chocks Away Compend.
25.00 1
Cobalt Seed
23.74 1
Crystal Maze, age 7+
28.45 I
Cyber Chess
31.50 1
Darkwood
20.70 1
Demon's Lair
20.00 1
Drifter (DD/HD)
31.50 1
Dune II (CD -£31.50)
26.60 1
Dungeon f
27.00 1
E-Type 2 f
30.00 1
Eclipse Collection
22.49 1
Enter the Realm
25.00 ■
Exodus
25.00 1
Fire and Ice
23.39 ■
Global Effect
27.00 1
Groundhog
12.00 I
Haunted House
25.00 I
Holed Out Compendium
20.00 ■
James Pond 2+
16.20 1
Logic Mania
27.00 1
Morph
25.00 I
Pandora’s Box
25.00 I
Patience Addict
19.95 1
Play It Again Sam 3
24.95 1
Play It Again Sam 4
35.00 1
Pushy (Shovy)
12.00 1
Real McCoy 2/3/4 (each)
35.00 B
Real McCoy 5
31.50 1
Rick Dangerous
15.26 1
Saloon Cars Deluxe
31.50 1
Scrabble
26.59 1
Shuggy
25.95 1
Silver Ball
12.00 1
Simon the Sorcerer
27.00 I
Small t
21.20 1
Spobbleoid Fantasy
30.00 I
Stereoworld
22.50 I
Stuntracer 2000 t
35.00 I
Supersnail
25.00 I
The Time Machine
25.00 1
Virtual Golf
31 .50 1
CD Business & Utils
Arm Club PD CD 1
19.00 1
Arm Club PD CD 2
15.00 1
Artworks ClipArt 1 or 2
20.08 1
Bitfolio 7
42.74 1
Font Emporium
29.95 1
PDCD4 (Datafile)
1 5.00 I
PDCD5 (Datafile)
15.00 1
ProArtisan 2
98.93 1
Rise Disc Vol.1
^oo|
Rise Disc Vol.2
20.00
Rise Disc Vol.3
25.00
Rob Duncan Cartoon Kit
42.74
Task Force ClipArt
33.20
Tekkie Disc (PRM's etc)
47.50
CDROM Education
Ancient Egyptians
42.30
Ancient Lands
50.53
Anim Talking Alphabe
33.43
British Isles from the Air
42.30
Castles
42.30
Crystal Rain Forest 2
50.17
Dangerous Creatures
50.53
Dinosaurs
50.53
Era of the 2nd WW
81.08
Garden Wildlife
42.30
s Guardians of Greenwood
58.16
! Hutchinson's Encyclopedia 52.82
Illustrated Shakespeare
29.32
John Cabot & Merchant V.
42.30
Kingfisher Micropedia
76.38
King Arthur
58.69
Kiyeko with Acorn reader
36.43
Map Detectives
50.17
Musical Instruments
50.53
My 1st Incrd. Amaz. Diet.
41.13
Number Time 2
28.99
Oxf. Talking Infant Atlas
22.32
PB Bears Birthday Party
41.13
Perspectives Francais
81.08
Romans
42.30
Science Explorer
66.96
Seashore Life
42.30
Science In Action
13.73
Settlements
81.08
Space Exploration
13.73
Survival: Mysteries of Nat.
42.30
The Way Things Work
50.53
The World's Weather
52.87
Tizzy's Toolbox
44.65
TOTS TV
19.95
Ultimate Human Body
50.00
Understanding the Body
42.30
Vikings
42.30
World of Robert Burns
93.94
I CDROM GAMES
Abuse
25.00
Ankh
25.00
Crystal Maze
28.45
Doom Trilogy
35.00
Dune II
31.50
Heroes of Might & Magic II 35.00 1
Simon the Sorcerer
32.40
Syndicate
29.00
Wizards Apprentice
24.95
1500 titles Available!!
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Minimum delivery £ 2
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Eureka 3
Powerful yet easy to use
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RRP £116
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Exciting and interactive
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Pendown
The easy to use word
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More power to
your PC card
Those of us who prefer to stick with our trusty
Acorns inevitably find it hard living in a PC-
dominated world, where few recognise the value
of Apples let alone our chosen platform. More fool
them really, but we still have to cope. Nowhere is
that more of a problem than at work. Now as work
becomes ever more intrusive the chances are you
may have to take it home with you. Well here's
how your Acorn, with your PC card, can help. Not
only can you run business software, you can also
run your office computer.
Laplink is a software package for linking PCs
together. It's now an impressive buy: Laplink Pro
offers hook-ups via RS232 cable, parallel cables,
USB, wireless, direct dial and Internet. Clearly not
all of those will be of interest to Acorn users. But
some will.
Installing the software has to be done at both
ends of course, then you have to go through a host
of set-up screens which
allow you to define
how your computer
connects, what the
protocols are, what
facilities are to be
allowed (from read
only to a full take-over)
plus, as you'd expect, a
comprehensive security
system that will
demand a password
when you log in.
Naturally you have to input any numbers for
dialling, network addresses and so on. There's a
lot to do - but it's fairly well laid out and you can
manage without the informative instruction book
if you're the type to try first and read later.
I've tried several hook-up methods using my
hardware. In all cases the aim has been to take
over a PC with the Rise PC, and though I have no
doubt the reverse would also work, I don't have
the need: I work at the Rise PC by choice - the
other is a slave! Direct dial connection was simple
and effective, but as you might expect it was a bit
slow. It would certainly benefit from ISDN, but
remember that would have to be available at both
ends. Direct connection with the RS232 port sadly
failed. I don't as yet know why, but I got nowhere
with it as the port simply locked up. Using my
newly installed network (more of which later I
hope) does work and is considerably faster as
might be expected.
Speed is inevitably the biggest problem. Direct
dial is very slow, even when using configure to
strip out unnecessary details like full colour, non-
crucial graphics effects and so on. Direct cable
connections ought to be considerably better and
network connections are the best choice if that's an
option.
So is it effective? Well yes it is - superbly so. I
could well imagine that if I had an office machine I
needed to work on without being there I could do
so with minimum fuss. Laplink is an excellent
utility that has no problems on the PC card. In fact,
given that the link via a modem is bound to be
slow, my guess is that the card won't introduce
any extra delays. And yet you get access to the
facilities, and to some extent the speed, of the
remote system. After all, any processor-hungry
tasks will happen at the
remote end under full
power, even if your screen
update is very sedate.
Naturally you do have the
option of working locally
and then uploading the file
directly if that works better.
There is also a chat
option which opens up
screens at both ends where
you can type and read
messages - your own
private, instant e-mail. A regular phone
conversation might be better but on the other hand
you can use messaging while also sending data or
even controlling the remote machine - potentially
useful if you need to explain what you are up to.
I mentioned earlier that the remote machine
can, if you so wish, be well and truly enslaved. I
must confess it is somewhat satisfying to have
another computer appearing in a window on your
machine. With the hardware connected over a
network as mine now is, operating a remote
machine without moving a leg muscle is easy.
Now I'll have to invest in one of those automatic
body toners because I won't even have to get up.
Laplink isn't cheap (over a hundred pounds)
but if you have need of operating office hardware
from your Acorn + PC card - you can. Just make
sure the office pays your phone bills.
Future support
Now that RISCOS Ltd is up and
running and there is a more certain
future for RISC OS development,
what of the PC card? First off, I'm told
RISC OS 4, which as I write may
make its debut in limited quantities
at Wakefield, will not only
support your PC card, but also
offer something like a 20% speed
improvement.
In the longer run, the question
'what next?' hits the rumour mill rather
than concrete fact. Any replacement
Rise PC board will probably support
existing cards as the PCI option isn't
realistic. But that's speculation at
present. Having said that, a PCI capable
machine may have surfaced by the
time you read this, in which case PCI
PC cards may be firmly back in
contention. What's true, what's fantasy?
Watch this space.
Meanwhile I note that Alephl
now' have some more PC cards
available. So if you've been
dithering, wondering about the
future, you now know a new card
looks like a decent investment. Also I
note from RComp's Website that to
go along with PCPro3, they
have updated and improved
PCSoundProfessional. PCSoundPro
provides much improved
sound support (PCPro omits support
for MIDI for example) and gives
you access to the kinds of game
sounds and MIDI software that PC
users now take for granted.
Hopefully I'll be looking at the
new PCSoundPro in more
detail soon
Product details J
Product:
Laplink Pro
Price:
£149
Product:
Laplink Remote
Desklink (no ftp)
Price:
£40
Web:
www.travsoft.com
Supplier:
PC World, etc
Contacting me J
You can contact me,
Mike Buckingham, by post at:
Acorn User, Media House,
Adlington Park, Macclesfield
SK10 4NP or by dropping me an
e-mail at: pcpage@acornuser.com
http://www.acornuser.com June 1999 V,
Notice Board
Professional
See NoticeBoard Professional in
action at the Wakefield Acorn
Show and at the South East Show
Special Introductory Offers
NoticeBoard Professional - a completely new
program, not an upgrade, and listed at £29.95
will be available at an introductory price of £20
at the Wakefield and South East Acorn Shows.
The most sophisticated presentation program
yet designed for use with RISC OS computers
NoticeBoard Professional provides a vast array
of options for the creation of stand-alone
rolling displays and slide show-type presen-
tations that can be run forwards or backwards
under the users complete control.
Display slides can be created using Drawfile,
Artworks or Spritefiles. JPEG files contained in a
Drawfile can also be displayed. Sound If you can
create sound samples you can add sounds or a
commentary to liven up a presentation.
NoticeBoard Professional will work with any
version of RISC OS from 3.10 to 4.0. It will not
run on RISC OS 2.0
Current users of the original Notice Board program who
present a labelled copy of the old Notice Board disc at
the Show will pay just £15 for the new program. Users
of Notice Board unable to attend either Show should
send the disk and a cheque for £16.50 direct to RGSC.
Old discs will be returned with the new program.
A program supplied with NoticeBoard Professional
converts old Notice Board slides to the NB Pro format.
The Really Good Software Company
39 Carisbroke Road, Harpenden, Herts UK AL5 5QS
Tel/Fax: 01582 761 395 E-mail: sales.rgsc@argonet.co.uk
No VAT. Post & packing for UK and Europe add £1.50
Other countries £5.00
See it all at Wakefield!
STAND No. 8
r/ 1 C D Fasti
Now Available
Significantly improved
CD-ROM cacheing utility
CDFast3 £29 (incl. VAT)
Upgrade £ 1 1-75 (incl. vat)
Graphics
Tablets
New Software with
additional
serial card support _
A5 Tablet only £21 7
(Including VAT. Carriage £1 1 .75 extra)
CD-RW
CD Re-writers for
ACORN or RISC PC
From £192 (IDE, Incl. VAT)
T here are four main features on this
month's cover disc: the movie
trailers, the usual programs,
some quick submissions from Mike
Cook, and what was hoped to be a compre-
hensive section from ECS. However,
all did not work out as planned, as you will
see.
First off there's the replacement IRunlmage
file I promised you last month for Peter
Kingsbury's BjtndJN application. This should
sort out the problem it had handling
complicated files.
Then we have a couple of submissions
from C W Seager, one of which will let users
with older machine use Paul F Johnson's
programs by providing 256 colour sprites for
them.
The other offering is PD program called
DeskFonts written by Rob Davison. This
enables the use of outline fonts on early
machines. It allows the system font to be
replaced in the desktop, and in this case
improves the appearance of the windows.
Richie Whincup has put forward Multi-
ISP, a wee application that lets you swap
between providers without having to have
multiple copies of the ANT Suite on your
harddisc - this idea is a must when you start
experimenting with the huge number of free
ISP's that are out there.
There's also the normal batch of Run the
Rise and ‘Info programs - Dave and Dave tell
me these aren't coming in at the usual rate, so
come on you programming johnnies, let's see
what you've got.
manuals. The latest version of StrongHelp itself
is also on the CD.
If you want to see what the presentation
slides would look like (if only Presenter ran)
then you will have to load the AvantG font
which is used in the drawfiles that Presenter
uses.
Please ensure that you copy the files to
your harddrivc first as all of them work better
that way - LadyBay and NeioSaver won't run at
all unless you do as they write to disc.
Presenter needs to have seen a Presenter
Celebrity
ECS
The applications and files from
ECS on this CD-ROM are not
quite in their intended form. For
a start over half of them never
made it through the Internet.
ECS PresVr is a viewer for presentations
made with ECS presenter. This is all explained
in the help file which comes with the Wakefield
demo...only that doesn't run now it's got as far
as the CD-ROM. This could be due to any
number of reasons, and in the short time we
had left we were unable to track the problem
down.
To get the help files which are in
StrongHelp format, you need to dig around a
bit. Open the Wakefield app (by shift double-
clicking on it). Then open Slides, then
Resources, then HelpFiles, and inside are
directory before it will run correctly, they
show multiple pencil icon sprites - derived
from Draw.
The StrongHelp manuals show the products
which will be shown at Wakefield. ECS Utils
and ECS Presenter are not ready for sale as yet,
but should make it shortly. NeioSaver, LadyBay
and Puzzler are available now.
I hope you can get them running after all.
Acorn User discs may carry working copies at
a later date if there is space.
You can keep an eye on the ECS Website
for updates on prices and availability at:
http://www.innotts.co.uk/~ecsltd/ Tel: 0115
979 9684 Fax: 0115 9799685 or e-mail on
ecsltd@ecsltd.co.uk.
Sorry if this frustrates a lot of people, I was
most annoyed to find that the files had
become corrupted, but as I say, time was short
and there was nothing we could do. I hope it
at least allows some idea of what ECS have
achieved.
Mike Cook's stuff
Mike provided a huge selection of files -
mainly NASA material - most of it based
around space and the planets in our system.
http://vvvvvv.acornuser.com )une 1999
Notting Hill
Unfortunately the largest
directory exceeded the limits of
CDFS both in depth and file
name size, so at the last minute
that too had to be cut. Still, there should be a lot of
useful information left.
Apologies if both this and the ECS offering look a
bit half-baked. They were last minute additions in
order to give you something extra, and didn't work out
as we had hoped.
Trailers
So, on to the film trailers. There are ten on this CD,
kindly donated by Buena Vista/ Walt Disney, 20th
Century Fox, Entertainment Film Distributors,
Polygram Filmed Entertainment, and UIP. All should
be fairly current by the time you get this, although I do
notice that The Waterboy is already advertising on TV.
If you're wondering why I didn't get Star Wars or
The Matrix - well, I did try. But unsurprisingly they're
a little reluctant to release such films willy nilly. It
probably would have taken months of over-the-table
talks with George to get Star Wars, and I think we're
both too busy for that.
Celebrity
Starring Kenneth Branagh , Indy Davis , Leonardo Dicaprio ,
Melanie Griffith, joe Mantegna, Winona Ryder
The film follows a 'mild mannered reporter' (Kenneth
Branagh) who covers the celebrity beat and gets
somewhat caught up in their world. Lucky chap.
Entrapment
Starring Sean Connery, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Ving Rhames
A story of a police entrapment. Master thief Sean
Connery is lured into the trap by cop-temptress
Catherine Zeta-Jones. They plan to pull off the greatest
robbery the world has ever seen (don't they always)
but has Miss Zeta-Jones fallen for our Sean - it's one of
those 'will she betray him in the end?' films. Looks
good.
First Sight
Starring Val Kilmer, Mira Soroino
A simple story line this one, a man and woman fall in
love, but the guy's blind. She wants him to get his sight
back, he undergoes an operation and bingo, everyone's
happy. Next!
Playing by heart
Starring Gillian Anderson, Sean Connery, Anthony
Edwards, Ryan Phillipe, Dennis Quaid, Gena Rowlands,
Madeleine Stowe
I'm a sucker for these ones. Lots of people try to fall in
love, will they, won't they? Oh! Quelle surprise, they all
did. Some cracking actors in this one, and a chance for
all you X-file fans to see Miss Anderson looking a little
more relaxed. Nice.
When someone says 'You have unleashed the creature
we have feared for more than 3000 years, he is the
bringer of death, he will never stop!' then you know
Playing By Henri
June 1 999 http://www.acornuser.com
The Waterboy
- —
The Mummy
Varsity Blues
you've gone and boobed somewhere along the
line. This looks a good film, full of nice effects,
and much better than I had anticipated when I
heard the title.
Notting Hill
Starring julia Roberts , Hugh Grant , Rhys Ifans,
Emma Chambers
If you like Hugh Grant then you'll love this.
It's produced by Richard Curtis and seems to
have a similar feel to you-know-what. It's a
story of an ordinary boy and the world's most
famous actress falling in love (happens all the
time). It also stars the dizzy one from the Vicar
of Dibley and a funny half-naked Welshman.
Good stuff.
Office Space
Starring Ron Livingston, Jennifer Aniston,
Stephen Root amt Gan / Cole
Nothing to rival Spartacus here, but it looks
fun, and is something we can probably all
relate to. It tells the story of a bunch of people
who hate their jobs, try to get fired, fail,
then decide to rip off their company as
pay-back. Angry employees, see this film
inspiration (I've made extensive notes).
A Simple Plan
Starring Bill Paxton, Billy Bob Thornton, Bridget
Fonda
Three friends stumble across a crashed
airplane stuffed full of cash. Naturally
they decide to keep it and tell no-one.
However, the pressure soon starts to tell, and
the addition of a dodgy FBI agent doesn't
improve matters.
Varsity Blues
Starring the chap from Dawson's Creek, this is
a film which looks at American Society,
specifically the way in which it's sporting stars
live and behave. It's based around a college
football team, its coach and star player. 'We
have the rest of our lives to be mediocre, but
now we have the opportunity to play like
gods. Let's be heroes'. A good one for
rednecks and Dawson fans.
The Waterboy
Starring Kathy Bates, Fairuza Balk, Jerry
Reed, and Henry Winkler and Adam
Sandler
Excellent. Sports, goofy guys,
lovely ladies, the Fonz, and lots of
laughs. No doubt it'll be a big hit
when it opens.
A Simple Plan
http://www.acornuser.com June 1999
incl VAT & delivery
See http://www.riscos.com
for ordering details
D igSigGm is a perfect example of the
power and flexibility of our favourite
computer being put to a very
specialised use. Basically this
application generates digital audio files of test
tones for transferring onto an audio CD. These
tones can then be used to test audio circuits to
CD quality standards. Granted this is not an
application that will find a favourite place in
everybody's software collection, but if you
need test tones tailored to your own
specification then this is not to be missed.
It can also be used by people taking a course
in signal processing, or electronics in general,
as it is a most comprehensive synthesis
/analyses tool for waveforms. The specialist
nature of the software means we can forgive it
for not corresponding to the normal desktop
standard. Instead it requires the computer to
run in 16 colours, with a resolution of
1280x1024.
When the application is run it occupies the
whole of the screen. All the controls are
arranged along the bottom of the screen and
can be incremented or decremented by a click
of the mouse; no other controls, parameters or
menus are used. The rest of the screen is
devoted to three windows; probability density
function, Fourier analyses, and a dual
window /waveform window. In this last one
However, there are also a number of random
waveforms. A random waveform basically
sounds like hissing and consists of a mixture
of frequencies that are not harmonically
related. As such there is no pitch with a
random waveform, but the spread of
frequencies affects how it sounds.
This is where the probability density
function window comes in, it shows you what
spread of frequencies are present in the
waveform. For example a 'Flat Random'
waveform has an equal probability of any
frequency at any instant. Therefore it comes as
no surprise that a 'Gauss Random' waveform
has a Gaussian shape to it. Pink noise has a
greater probability of lower frequencies, while
red noise has even more. Remember that this
is still noise and will still sound like a hiss, but
the hiss will have different audio
characteristics.
A specialist waveform is the Sin+Cos,
this outputs a Sine wave on the left channel
and a Cosine wave on the right one. If you
view this on an oscilloscope, with one
channel driving the X deflection and the
other driving the Y, then in a perfect
system you will see a circle. Any distortion
or difference between the two channels
will result in the circle being distorted.
Finally there is an intermodulation test
we really have a
window (computer
screen area) showing
the window function
(filtering of the signal),
it's just unfortunate
that the same word is
used for different
concepts.
The window
function also serves as
an envelope for tone
bursts, as well as
giving you a simple
look at the waveform
in the time domain, or
how it would look on
an oscilloscope. This is
less than perfect as at
higher frequencies the display just looks like a
collection of random dots or lines on the
screen. This is due to sampling rates and
scaling of the display, and as this is not the
prime purpose of the package failure to rescale
the display can be forgiven.
As the purpose of the package is to
generate tones let's look at what can be
defined. Well first of all you can choose the
wave shape, this of course will determine the
mix of frequencies that will be produced. For
example a sine wave
contains just one spot
frequency, or the
fundamental. All other
wave shapes are made
from a number of sine
and cosine waves.
These are added
together at frequencies
that are an integer
multiple of the
fundamental, or to put
it in the jargon,
harmonics.
DigSigGcn allows
you to choose from the
standard wave shapes;
sine, square, triangle
and sawtooth.
http://www.acornuser.com June 1999 'v.
waveform, this is in fact two tones of
different frequencies and amplitudes.
Having selected the waveform you
can then select the frequency, and like
all the other parameters you need to
click through the preset values.
The length of the tone can be set,
here it is done by the rather oddly
named Pre-Decay time. This is the
length of time before the tone starts to
decay, but it is not the most obvious of
names to define the tone length. When
writing to CDs you can't record a
track shorter than ten seconds, so if
you only want a short tone then you
can add some silence of 'Pre-Quiet' to
the tone.
Next you will want to set the
volume or level, again predefined but
here usefully in terms of decibels. The
full amplitude waveform is defined at OdBs but there
are some higher values for deliberately producing
clipped waveforms. You can also define the number of
bits per sample and sample frequency. Finally you can
select some effects to modulate the basic tone, these are
a frequency sweep, tone burst and reverberation.
With all the choices made, clicking the Go
button actually generates the waveform, which in
due course is drawn and the Fourier analyses
displayed. At this point the waveform is also saved
in a fixed name file inside the application. If you
have a 16-bit sound system you have an opportunity
to hear your creation by clicking the 'play last' box.
If it is to your liking you can save the file, although
this is really just a rename function to stop the file
being overwritten.
If you want to save the screen (very useful
for reviews) pressing the * key on the numeric
pad saves the screen inside the application in a
series of prenamed files. The numbering sequence
starts up every time you open the application so
don't be caught out thinking the earlier screen
saves are preserved. The program should really
read what files are present, and then start numbering
them from there.
That is really all there is to it, but what you need to
know is what waveform you want and how you are
going to use it. The manual quite rightly makes no
mention of this as really this needs a text book on
audio amplifiers to do the subject justice. While you
can listen to the tone on the computer this will not be
at the highest possible quality. To get the best results
you really need to assemble these tones onto a CD.
Traditionally these test CDs have cost much more
than the price of this package and usually they don't
have all the waveforms you want. However, if you
don't have your own CD burner then Atomic Software
can supply you with a test CD of their own. Naturally
it is made using DigSigGen and very reasonable priced
at £8.99. If purchased with DigSigGen then there is a
discount of £5 on the combined price.
As I was finishing this review an updated version
arrived on my desk. This has added to the types of
waveforms that can be generated by implementing a
dithering function, in effect adding noise to an
otherwise pure sound. I have not had time to fully
check this out.
So who would want to use this? Well audiophiles
can test their CD player or computer sound card
and see if the performance is really what it is claimed
to be. Service engineers can use this to check up on an
audio repair, and sound engineers can check
equipment. By encoding these tones in MPEG format
manufacturers of digital TV equipment can check out
the sound quality given by different chip sets. It could
also be used by software writers to compare MPEG
decoding strategies.
Like computers in the early days, this is not for
everyone, but if it is for you then you will know about
it. In short this is a unique and highly technical piece of
software set at such a low price you are in danger of
dismissing it. On another platform you could easily
move the decimal point in the price by at least
one place to the right.
Product details
Product: DigSigGen
Price: £27.95
Supplier: Atomic Software 1 Fells
Grove, Worsley, Manchester,
M28 7JN
Type: Precision audio signal
generator
Requirements:
Strong ARM Rise PC, 1Mb
VRAM, 16 Mb RAM, monitor
capable of 1280x1024 graphics.
30Mb + Harddisc space free,
16 bit sound system.
y June 1999 http://www.acornuser.com
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Prices include VAT and UK carriage & packing, unless stated otherwise. E&OE
David Watkins
reviews APDL's
latest games CD's
friends
P ublic domain libraries are the life blood of
the user base. They form a valuable link
between amateur programmers and
enthusiastic users, and we'd be in a much
sorrier state without them.
Five years ago there were about six major PD
libraries, but around half of
those have now closed -
DataStream (1994), Arch
Angel (1996) and the
Datafile (1998). Thankfully
their contents have not
been lost as APDL
(Archimedes Public
Domain Library) has
merged them with its own.
APDL Games Collection No.l
From it’s vast and valuable software resource, which
includes thousands of PD games, APDL has selected 20
of the best PD and freeware titles and put them on a
CD-ROM - they run on all machines from a 2Mb A3000
to a StrongARM Rise PC. The games can be played
directly from the CD while still allowing High Score
tables to be maintained, and all at a cost of £7.90. Not
bad, eh?
the sphere, hanging pendulum-like from your ship in
the labyrinth. It's been in my Games directory since I
found it on the author's Website, last October.
Lemmings also needs StrongGuard on a StrongARM
Rise PC. Slight differences in the effects it employs
(compared with the original) and 30 new levels to play,
make this one addictive.
Willy is the ZX Spectrum game Jet
Set Willy. It's a platform game with
99 objects to collect from named
rooms. This is a game for nostalgia
freaks - read the History file for a
real feel of the early eighties,
XOR is a brilliant clone of the
superb BBC B maze game. The
puzzles are still as challenging as ever, and the objects,
which include sliding chickens, falling fish, bombs and
dolls are just wonderful.
Castle Blackheart is a maze game. Your sword-
throwing hero collects boxes of treasure, scrolls, keys,
and food, while battling with the resident heavies in a
quest to save his fiance.
Blobby2, Goop and Splodge are platform games with
similar themes - you control an amorphous lump that
can squeeze through narrow gaps to avoid the baddies.
They are great fun to play, and the action is fast and
PD games software can range in quality from
unfinished experiments to clone-like versions of
commercial products. I'll try to say something about
each of the games, but don't expect 20 separate
reviews, there's not enough room.
ArchieMan is a traditional PacMmi clone. It's a nice
and smooth rendition with most of
the features I remember from the
original, including ghosts, power
pills, fruit, and lots and lots of dots
to eat.
CTetris runs in a 256-colour mode.
It uses colours instead of shapes and
it's a must for Tetris aficionados.
Invaders also needs a 256-colour
mode. It's a shoot-em-up of the
Galaxian genre, with superb action
and fantastic graphics. It needs the
ARM Club's StrongGuard on a
StrongARM Rise PC.
Minesweep is a reasonably faithful version of the
Windows desktop game. Both the grid size and the
number of mines are configurable.
Thrust is not a complete game - there are only five
screens to complete. Nevertheless it is an excellent
version of one of the best games ever. It's the one with
furious - so fast in fact that they need StrongGuard
on a StrongARM Rise PC.
Bombz and Firebolt are maze games. In Bombz you
collect detonators to explode the bombs, while in
Firebolt you just drop the bombs and run away. Firebolt
is for 1-4 players and includes joystick support. Both
games come with their own level designers, and are
highly addictive.
Mosquito is a flight simulation created using the Simis
Flight Simulator Toolkit. The mission is set in the
islands off the coast of Scotland and the mosquito is up
}J June 1999 http://www.acornuser.com
APDL Games
against BV141B light bombers and ME110D
escort fighters. The aircraft, mosquito controls,
and the mission are fully documented - and
there are even bridges to fly under.
Cyberwar and Swarm are shoot-em-up robot
wars. Cyberxvar has proximity mines, heat-
seeking missiles, plasma cannons and missile
cannons, and there's also a two-player option.
Swarm is an epic in its own right, with
stunning graphics, excellent gameplay and
smooth action.
Bouncy is a game which uses a simple idea to
great effect. Platforms change colour when
you roll a bouncy ball on them. There are 50
levels and they're not that easy, believe me.
Powerball is a Breakout clone. It has 20 levels
and can be configured to run at different
speeds to cater for older processors.
Tanks is a shoot-em-up. You can choose
different perspective views, and can
interact with the scenery as you
manoeuvrer your tank between
buildings, around trees, behind hills
and along roads, either avoiding or
attacking the enemy tanks.
There's something on this CD-
ROM for every type of Acorn
games player and, at under 40p
per game, this collection of PD and
freeware games represents excellent
value.
APDL Games
Collection No.2
This CD release includes a useful utility,
SlowMotion, which is provided for games that
run too fast on a StrongARM machine. This
utility has also been added retrospectively to
the Best Games Collection No.l CD-ROM.
Kick-Off is a football manager game whose
value more than covers the cost of the whole
collection. There are 88 clubs in four divisions,
and a season (which takes a good hour to
complete if you're doing it properly) involves
each team playing every other team in its
division both Home and Away. You start in
Division 4 and have 50 seasons ahead of you.
What is more, it's a multi-player game and up
to four managers can compete against each
other.
RailPro is a simulation of the traffic-control
room in a railway station, where you direct
trains to their correct destinations by
controlling signals and points. It comes with a
map designer and 12 ready-made maps. This
is a game for anyone who has ever played
with toy trains.
Hangman is the traditional game where
you guess the letters or build the gallows.
It comes with a list of 200+ words which
you can replace to enable Hangman
games to be tailored for specific
individuals, and for different levels of
literacy.
Grey Thunder is a good example of an
iconbar game - one that is played on the
iconbar, rather than on the desktop. It's a
^Coflectwn
w %; n
9{mwer2
IS
horizontal-scrolling, shoot-em-up involving
nasty bouncing balls, nasty cones and nasty
green monsters.
Also horizontally scrolling, Bunny Race is
a platform game. As Elvis the bunny you
bounce your car between platforms to reach
the finishing post at the end of the level. You
do have a carrot-canon, but watch out for
those turnip bombs...
There are three more platform games on the
disc, all excellent in their own ways: Manic
Miner is the original and definitive platform
game for nostalgia freaks; Botkiller (currently
my favourite from this collection) is a strategic
shoot-em-up with really nice effects and 30
levels of lovely puzzles to solve; while
Son of Gyrinus has you collecting
crystals while avoiding the baddies.
Other games for nostalgia freaks
include Frogger, that road-crossing
amphibian, and an Invaders clone
called Blitzer, both of which were
written using Andy Southgate's
Amnesia Game Suite. Tetris aficionados
will love Hatris - it has falling hats
and sports 50 levels of increasing
difficulty.
The maze games in this collection
display a variety of styles and special
effects. In DStar you collect items
using either of two controllable objects - a ball
(the collector) and a block (a moveable
barrier). Once pushed, the object keeps
moving until it hits something. You have to
position the block so that the ball can be lined
up with the collectables - not as easy as it
sounds. There are 25 levels and there's a level
designer, too.
In Polltax you are trapped in the
catacombs under Hackney Town Hall where
there are 60 levels of block-pushing and cash
collection to work through.
If you prefer to blast your obstacles out of
existence then there's Bomba Man. You have
to be nimble though, to avoid being hoisted by
your own petard.
Originally written for the IBM XT,
Digger is a version of Boulders (Mr Do or Mr
Ee, depending on your formative game-
playing years). This one features an
earthmover which resembles a
mechanical pair of scissors, and the
obligatory
two types of green meanie. There
are 36 level files and a wealth
of command line options to
play with.
A maze game of a different type is
Kryten. It's a text adventure based
on the Red Dwarf television series
and books. Smeggin' brilliant!
There are two patience games -
Taipei and SPatience. In Taipei you
remove matching pairs from a stack of 144
Mah Jong tiles, while SPatience offers a
selection of the traditional one-player card
games. It uses a script language, allowing
different types of patience game to be created,
and comes with nine ready-made scripts.
The remaining two games are both two-
player and work well in an educational setting.
Sim involves joining dots together without
making a triangle, and Fall Through has
players alternately typing letters on the
keyboard to cause balls to fall down the screen.
All the games on these CD-ROMs
are public domain and freeware. They
are examples of the best games produced
by enthusiastic and dedicated amateurs,
and have been selected to represent a wide
range of game styles. You're sure to find
half a dozen games that you'll come back to
again and again. The CD-ROMs represent
an easy and convenient way to collect these
forty games, and buying it supports our PD
libraries. At £7.90 you're certain to get
value for money.
Product details j
Product: APDL Games Collection No.l
Price: £7.90
Product: APDL Games Collection No.2
Price: £7.90
Supplier: APDL, 39 Knighton Park
Road, Sydenham, London
SE26 5RN
Tel: 0181 778 2659
Web: www.apdl.co.uk
http://www.acornuser.com June 1999
^ Ploxmie ;
Easy to use drag & drop
Controller maps (e.g.
tampp and velocity)
easily alterable by
drawing with the mouso
Patterns can be linked to
reflect changes made to
other patterns
' . Handles System Exclusives
" .. Multitasking playback
Support any MIDI
interface, including
parallel and serial
Up to 192 MIDI channels
and no track limit
Free demo disc available
Now available -£129.00
Recent/New Releases
Abuse - £23.00
Descent CDs - £28.00
Heroes of Might and Magic 2 - £32.00
Heretic & Hexen CD - £32.00
OHP CD (Spacetech) - £28.95
Photodesk 3 - £279.95
Sunburst -£12.50
Syndicate Plus CD - £26.50
&TDK.
Discs (example lOx white discs -£4.60, 50x black discs -£16.59,
5x HD red/blue/grccn/white discs - £2.49)
Batteries (e.g. 4x A A Xtra alkaline - £2.20, lx 9V alkaline - £1.84)
Audio & Video Tapes - EVarious
We supply a range of CCD MM
and laser bar code scanners Mm
and Include with these our
IBarReador driver software
which allows bar codes to control
most desktop software.
Further information is available.
Compioto systems from £193.88
PC cards
Our bar coding
software produces
sSipr Draw files of tho
following formats: EAN 8,
Y EAN 13, UPC A, ISBN, ISSN,
Code 39 (Normal and Full
ASCII), Telepen and Binary.
Further information is available.
IBarCoder- £69.33
Computer Systems
These prices do not Include monitors,
unless specified.
RISC PC 4+OMb 1.7Gb HD - £911.00
"Web Wizard" - as J233, speakers, Easiwriter
Pro, 33.6K modem, ANT Suite - £1 265.00
"Peak Performer" - A7000+, 8Mb, 32x CD, 14-
monitor & software pack - £875.00
"Peak Performer Internet" - A7000+, 24Mb, 32x
CD, 14” monitor, modem, ANT Suite- £979.00
Sprinter" NC system - lObasoT, 16Mb,
14” monitor, keyboard & mouse - £445.30
RiscStatlon R7500 - £Call
5x86-133, 51 2K cache, PC Pro2 - £360.00
PC Pro 2- £38.95
PC Pro 3- £70.50
PC Sound Pro 2- £39.95
Win95FS - £39.95
Windows 98 CD -£100.00
Psion Series 5
8Mb, with PC connection kit - £395.00
8Mb, SPECIAL EDITION - £445.00
D A FREEPOST EH2725
|v ^ Kirkcaldy, Fife, KY2 5BR
United Kingdom
Tel: 01592 592265 Fax: 01592 596102
email: Liquid@cableinet.co.uk
http://www.cybervillage.co.uk/acorn/liquid/
Monitors
(Either bought with computer or separately):
ilyama 350 (15")- £159.00
liyama S702GT (17") - £289.00
iiyama 400 (17")- £323.00
Ilyama Pro 400 (17")- £339.00
liyama Pro 410 (17")- £375.00
Ilyama 450 (19")- £499.00
Ilyama Pro 450 (19")- £539.00
Ilyama 502 (21”)- £770.00
Ilyama Pro 502 (21") - £770.00
iiyama Pro 510 (22")- £875.00
liyama Pro-Lite 36a 14.1" LCD - £687.00
Ilyama Pro-Lite 38a 15" LCD - £910.00
ilyama Pro-Lite 38b 15" LCD- £945.00
ilyama Pro-Lite 38c 15" LCD - £1032.00
Ilyama Pro-Lite 39a 15" LCD - £1599.00
Ilyama Pro-Lite 46a 18" LCD - £2469.00
Touchscreens- CCall
Parallel link- £34.95
PsiRIsc link- CCall
Memory Upgrades
Plcaso call to check current prices.
Other upgrades are available.
A3000 1-4 Mb - £64.60
A3010 1-4 Mb- £69.30
A3020/A4000 2-4 Mb - £52.80
A5000 2-4 Mb - £69.30
A30O, 400, 5000 4-8 Mb - £128.00
Rise PC/A7000 SIMMs:
Call for EDO SIMM prices
16Mb- £33.95
32Mb (not original RPCs) - £73.50
32Mb (high clearance) - £73.50
64Mb- £122.00
128Mb- £Call
1Mb VRAM- £49.00
1 -2Mb VRAM swap- £55.00
2Mb VRAM- £92.80
Music & Sound Section
Please call for other musical Items
MIDI Interfaces:
DMI 50 dual MIDI card (2x2) - £149.95
XG upgrade for DMI 50 - £151.95
16-bit sampler for DMI 50- £87.95
MIDI Max II Internal ixlxl- £92.75
Parallel Port 1x1x1- £89.20
Synth 8 or Basic Synth - £46.95
Synth Plus- £58.65
Music & Sound Prog. Guide - £1 8.95
Other hardware:
FatarSL 760 -£450.00
Fatar SL 880 - £600.00
Fatar SL 1100 -£800.00
FatarSL 2001 -£1050.00
Irlam sound sampler -£118.00
Digital-upgraded Irlam sampler- £177.00
MIDI upgrade for Irlam sampler - £CaII
Sound Byte Recorder - £57.50
Yamaha YST-M8 speakers - £41.50
YST-M20 DSP speakers - £59.00
YST-MS28 speakers & subw.- £79.00
YST-M100 speakers - £99.95
YST-MSW5 subwoofer- £63.00
YST-MSW10 subwoofer- £67.00
Yamaha MU10 sound module - £169.00
Other software:
MediaPack- £23.95
MIDI Support- £18.50
Prosound -£116.95
Rhapsody 4- £94.95
Junior Sibelius- £49.00
Sibelius 6- £99.95
Sibelius 7 Student- £319.95
Sibelius 7 -£625.00
Sibelius for Windows is also available
Optical Manuscript - £259.00
Sound module serial driver - £37.95
Studlosound - £1 1 6.95
Other Hardware
Dual fast serial card - £104.50 1
Ethernet card (Combi NIC slot) -£104.50 !
Hard drives & kits - £Call
Rise PC second slice - £140.00
RPC second slice (no PSU)- £90.00
StrongARM upgrade - £275.00
Other Software
Ankh- £23.00
ANT Internet Suite 2 - £112.00
Brutal Horse Power- £26.00
DataPower 2 - £165.00
Doom+CDs- £30.00
EasiWriter Pro -£129.00
Empire Soccer 94 - £22.00
Exodus- £21.00
Impression Style - £88.00
Impression Publisher - £135.00
Inferno - £9.50
iXRC- £14.99
Ovation Pro -£150.50
Personal Accounts 3 - £43.00
Photodesk Light -£125.00
Prophet 3 -£160.00
Schema 2 -£116.00
Sleuth 3 -£110.50
Textease- £54.50
TopModel 2 - £145.00 ,
Books & Manuals
RISC OS 3 PRM- £104.00
The Tekkie CD - £45.00
Catalogue
Our free catalogue contains over 2000
items. Please ask for a copy.
We will attempt to match or beat any advertised price - even special offers.
All prices INCLUDE VAT & UK carriage M l \t
Official orders and callers welcome. Finance available. iSS* | I!
What’s stopping you from
creating Desktop applications? Time?
Money?
Nothing.
Full version £35
Upgrade from WimpWorks £10
version 1
Upgrade from WimpBASIC £15
(vl or v2), HelixBasic,
WimpGEN or Archway
Upgrades must include original disk(s).
Prices arc till inclusive. Please make
cheques payable to Andrew Flegg.
WimpWorks allows anyone to create multi-tasking
Desktop applications using standard BBC BASIC,
but with over 100 new commands. Simple clocks to
complete databases can be created using its fully
visual and extendible environment.
Online support and new plug-ins are available, as is
our range of PIC programming solutions - please
phone for more information.
28 Grange Farm Drive
Stockton
Rugby
CV23 8 FT
United Kingdom
Phone: +44 (0)7010 704228
Email: info@jaffasoft.co.uk
Web: http://www.jaffasoft.co.uk/
Michael Cowgill
continues his series
on MIDI controllers
Control
I t is now some months since you read my
last music page in Archimedes World,
when, if you remember, I covered Pitch
Bend and Modulation controllers. Steve
Turnbull has kindly allowed me to complete
unfinished business in this magazine, so
this is the first of a few articles dedicated to
explaining the remaining MIDI controllers.
This month I am going to talk about Volume,
Expression, Pan, and the three switch
controllers: Sustain, Sostenuto and Soft
Pedal.
First of all let's discuss Volume and
Expression controllers. Both these
occur in GM, GS and XG
specifications, although earlier
systems do not recognise the
Expression controller. They are
assigned to controllers 7 and 11
respectively, and both affect sound
levels. This raises the question: why
should anyone want two controllers which
do exactly the same thing?
The sum of the parts
The answer to this also explains why systems
earlier than GM do not have an Expression
controller; early MIDI compatible systems
tended to be monotimbral, that is, they could
only play one sound at once. By the end of the
1980s however, MIDI sound-generation gear
started to be capable of playing more than one
sound at once.
This was partly the result of the invention
of the Sample & Synthesis method of sound
generation at the turn of the decade. This,
combined with the steady fall in RAM prices
during the 90's, meant we were able to store
far more sounds in a Wavetable MIDI Sound
Module than was possible, practical, or
economic before.
The General MIDI specification, drawn
up in 1991, states that a GM compatible
device must be 16 part multitimbral,
that is, able to play 16 independent parts
at once. Suddenly there emerged a need
to be able to balance all these sounds so
that one is not overpowering the others in
the "mix". This is now the designated role
of the Volume controller.
This then raises
a dilemma. If the
Volume control is
already in use, how do
you control the dynamic
range of parts such as
brass, organs and strings
when using velocity for
this purpose is not
appropriate?
Enter the Expression
controller - this can
provide a dynamic
level between 0
and 127 within
the volume set
for that part.
Of course you
can still use
the Volume
controller for this
purpose if you want to,
however it is now
considered good
MIDI practice to
adopt the
procedure I have
outlined. In fact
this saves you from
having to trawl through
the event list, altering all Volume controller
events when you decide that the French Horn
is too loud right through the mix.
Panning out right
Now to the Pan controller. This is the
controller that defines the stereo position
of a part, and is assigned to controller
number 10. At first sight the use of this
controller seems obvious, but there are
pitfalls into which the unwary may step
if they are not careful.
Firstly, be careful how wide you set
the stereo sound-stage. Panning parts full
left or right is fine if you know that your
MIDI creation will be played back (in a
decent stereo system, but you may find
that your masterpiece sounds like a
jumble of instruments when played back in
mono.
If there is a possibility that your music will
be played back on a mono system, make sure
that you don't use pan settings which are
much more than 10 positions left or right of
centre, but if you do (and do this anyway)
make sure you play back the result on a mono
system before you commit it to permanent
media. That way you will know whether it
sounds OK or not. Secondly, obey these (very)
general rules:
• Always pan drums to the centre;
• Panning bass parts anywhere but centre
is a waste of time as the human ear
finds it difficult to perceive the direction
of bass parts;
• It is advisable to use a stereo sound-stage of
no more than 45° either side of centre
unless you are aiming for a wacky effect.
Pedal power
This just leaves the three switch controllers;
Sustain, Sostenuto and Soft Pedal. Of
these, GM and GS specifications only
recognise the first, but DM I card owners
with the DB50XG fitted will have the
luxury of the other two. They are assigned
to controllers 64, 66 and 67 respectively,
and their use will be immediately recognised
by pianists.
For those of you who are not ivory
ticklers; Sustain, when on, will leave a
note (or notes) playing until it is put in
the off state; Sostenuto sustains the last
note struck, and Soft Pedal reduces the
velocity level at which the note is "strucjc".
The "Off" state of these last three is usually
defined as a value less than 63, and
the "On" state as greater than 64.
Contacting Me j
You can contact me by writing
to Michael Cowgill, The Score
Machine, 22, Nelson Street, Retford,
Notts, DN22 6LP or e-mail:
mcowgill@scoremac.demon.co.uk
http://www.acornuser.com June 1999 ^
YES! Please send me copies of Destiny @ £30 each
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One of the most talked about Acorn games of 1 998 is available now
Transported to an
unknown world you must
venture into a dangerous
domain. Not only are you
searching for power cells
so you can return, you
have to survive and
battle against the evil f
denizens who are
determined to
.
"...The weaponry in this game is second
to none, and outclasses Quake or Doom by
a long way." Acorn Arcade
"I would say that it is a good buy for all
Rise PC owners" . . .
Acorn Arcade
«!tt.|b*JR COPY NOW AND
1 V :li I InH a R, i rvm rr- «-
I High resolution 3D graphics
• Huge varied levels JK
€ Serious fire power ^
• Intelligent enemies
I Original music
•Configurable controls
And much more nevepseen
in any other game of thfeTyp
on any other platform j.
Playable on A7000+, Rise PC 600 or better. StmH^
recommended. Requires CD-ROM drive* lOlSpb R>
13Mb hard disc space minimum.
June 1999 http://www.acornuser.com
/
Earth and Space
Planet
Mike Cook puts two
earth and space CD's
through their paces
Earth
E arth Data consists of two major
applications, Earth Data and Earth
Map. Earth Map is a piece of freeware
by John Kortink and it uses a huge
database consisting of 5,719,617 line segments,
describing coordinates and shape of a number
of natural, and man-made features on Earth.
Its only function is to plot these line
segments as a map, and it is debatable how
well it does this. If you choose the option of
cacheing all the files then scrolling round the
globe is not too bad, but that will only work if
you have 14Mb of free memory. If not then
there is the option to cache sections of the
map.
The images can be exported as drawfiles,
where you can pull segments apart, or create
worksheets for pupils. The scrollbars do not
work properly, and although the scroll arrows
do work, the movement is wrong. Longitude
wraps around which is fine, but so does
latitude, and that makes the north pole
adjacent to the south pole. This is admitted in
the instructions but is really not good enough.
Furthermore I suspect that the map
coordinates are in latitude and longitude, and
these are simply plotted in terms of screen X
and Y coordinates. The result is the distortion
of coast lines and the enlargement of areas
close to the poles. As freeware it is value for
money, but only just.
I had a bit of trouble getting Earth Data to
load, sometimes it would, and sometimes it
complained that a library module had failed to
load. When it did get going the application is
an exercise in large menu structures, full of
those facts about countries that are as dull as
ditch water and which passed for education
sometime in the 1930s. I also think some of the
data is made up. For example
literacy rates in all developed
countries are shown as 99%,
which I don't believe.
Still, there are nice flags on the
icon for each country, and some of
the facts, like religious beliefs, can
be plotted out as a graph of
various sorts. There are a number
of maps scaled to show the
country's general and/or precise
location, and there is the ability to
produce a 'report' on a country.
The application also allows
you to combine section filters, so
that refined reports or cross-
correlated statistics can be produced. Finally,
data can be output in the form of CSV files,
these are stored in a file ready for importing
into a spreadsheet or other applications.
Earth in Space is now into version 4 and
claims to have "all the astronomy related
material anyone is ever likely to need, and
more", a statement I do not agree with. Sad to
say this is a very sparse collection indeed,
what is worse, the quality of the images is
appalling. There are two ways of viewing
some of these files, the first is
an HTML-based system using
Webite, and the second uses
an unregistered copy of the
shareware product Powerbase ,
which the start-up screen says
you are obliged to register.
The HTML is simply a list
of subjects leading to a single
picture. The database
navigation is not much better,
but does lead to some
explanatory texts.
Unfortunately not all the
images are referenced this
way, and if you were only to
use these forms of presentation you would be
missing out.
The presentation on manned missions
simply scrolls through the name, short
description, number of orbits and launch date,
while displaying the same image of an Apollo
Lunar Module in orbit around the Moon.
However even this data is not consistent.
The entries stop in 1990 and the Russian
flights between 1983 and 1986 are missing
altogether. The unmanned section is even
worse. Several important probes like Viking 2
are missed out, and it ends in 1977 with
Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 sharing the same
launch date, when in fact there were 16 days
between them. The more I delved into this
resource the less happy I was.
It is worth pointing out that these products
are possibly the lowest priced CDs availiable
on the Acorn market, and are popular with
many users. However, from my own
standpoint, this is one package I
can't recommend.
Product details
Product:
Earth in Space V4.0 & Earth
Data CD-ROMs
Price:
£9.90 each
Supplier:
APDL 39 Knighton Park Rd.
London SE26 5RN
Tel:
0181 778 2659
Fax:
0181 488 0487
Web:
www.apdl.co.uk/
http://www.acornuser.com June 1999 V
m
Phoenix
Rising
Alasdair Bailey
speaks to RISC
OS's three
most eligible
bachelors
Technical Director Andrew Rmvnsley
T he release of the RISC OS 4 upgrade
signals a very important change in the
way our operating system is developed.
Although Acorn did most of the
groundwork on the upgrade, it was the team at
RISCOS Ltd who transformed an operating system
which had little more than the bare essentials, into
a major upgrade for existing hardware.
RISCOS Ltd is the result of a plan hatched just
days after the initial Acorn shock on 'Black
Thursday'. It is primarily funded by the
shareholdings of existing Acorn dealers and
developers, all of whom have a vested interest in
seeing the development of RISC OS continue. The
company we see today resulted from the so-called
Steering Group, which failed to secure a deal to
put the planned Phoebe Rise PC II into production,
but did make excellent headway with Acorn /E-14.
Before Christmas, the thinking was that RISC
OS 4 was almost finished. However, things turned
out a bit differently, and a fair amount of work was
needed before the upgrade could be sold to
existing users. A deal was done with Acorn over
Christmas whereby RISCOS Ltd would be formed
with a one fifth of shares held by Acorn (or
Element 14 as they are now known). The rest of the
capital came from the Acorn dealers who were
already involved with the project. It is worth
pointing out that the Element 14 stake in the
company is primarily a profit earning one as
opposed to a controlling stake. If RISCOS Ltd do
well out of what is, essentially, ex-Acom
technology, they'll want to still have their fingers
in the pie.
The rather vague announcement which was
posted at the Acorn Midlands show just before
Christmas referred to this deal, but its statement
that the upgrade would arrive in January was
clearly too hopeful. The programming work on
RISC OS got underway at RISCOS Ltd's Midlands
office during February this year.
I could not possibly try to write an article about
the production of the upgrade without actually
going to the RISCOS Ltd HQ and seeing their
work first hand. The management are very keen
on keeping the location of the programming work
a secret. At first this may sound like bad PR, but
when you think about it, it does make sense. This
way the programmers can carry on without every
Tom, Dick and Harry turning up at the door.
The visit took place on the Monday before
Easter Sunday, about two months before the
upgrade was scheduled for release. I was issued
with instructions to arrive at a Midlands rail
station at 10:30am and told that my onward travel
arrangements would be taken care of.
As I leave the train, I am greeted by two
hooded men. 'You from Acorn User?' they grunt.
Before I can answer, I'm bundled into the back of a
white van and driven away. I tty to remember
details of the route we're taking but the van is
travelling too fast.
After what felt like hours, the van stopped and
I was dragged into the reception area of a small
industrial unit. I sat there for a while, dazed and
Hardware
Server: a Linux machine with 3 x 9Gb LVD Ultra-
Wide SCSI drives in a hot swappable RAID
array with 128Mb of RAM and P2 400s.
Development Machines:
32Mb to 64Mb StrongARM Rise PCs with 2-
4Gb hard drives. All have 19' monitors,
stretching the VIDC20 to its limits running
1280x1024 at 75 or 80hz.
Backup: CDR(RVV), Syquest and Zip.
Internet: ISDN LAN router.
Printing: via a 1200dpi postscript LAN printer.
|une 1999 http://www.acornuser.com
Justin Flectcher - mild mannered computer programmer
confused until Andrew Rawnsley, technical
director of RISCOS Ltd came and greeted me.
He explained how it's very difficult to get
good taxi drivers in the Midlands and we
move on.
The RISCOS Ltd office is a large room with
white walls and two windows, both with their
blinds very firmly closed. Only the
programming takes place here, explains
Andrew, the sales and marketing is all taken
care of at the Cardiff office.
I am introduced to two of the senior
programmers - Justin Fletcher and Matthew
Bullock - who both work full-time for RISCOS
Ltd. Most of you will have seen examples of
Justin and Matthew's previous work, but I'll
come to that later.
The simple office contains three
fairly orderly desks, plus several test
benches and work surfaces. At one end lie
the two programmers' desks, with Andrew's
situated at the opposite end of the room.
Andrew has taken on a managerial role
within the team because of his experience as
project manager for many R-Comp and
R-Comp Interactive (RCI) releases, hence the
separate desk.
Before proceedings got underway, I was
treated to a quick game of Doom+ over the
office network against Justin and Matthew. My
regular readers will be pleased to hear that I
showed them a few tricks and was first to five
twice in three games.
Each desk is equipped with similar
hardware. As you might expect, each has a
high-powered Rise PC with 19" monitor and
those lovely cushioned mouse mats (see box
for full machine specs). The presence of a
rather meaty PC box was also noted on each
desk, although except for the backup machine,
these were all turned off. The Rise PCs are
essentially just clients used for typing and
compiling the code, the code changes are
logged by a system known in the trade as
CVS, this prevents either coder working on an
out of date copy of the source. However, the
actual ROM build will take place on a Rise PC.
All the Rise PCs run the latest RISC OS 4
builds for real-world testing.
All the usual small office peripherals are
present, including a laser printer, scanner and
fax machine. Andrew took great pride in
showing off the 'infeasibly large server' which
takes care of the office LAN. The team also
seemed quite chuffed with the office phone
which, as if by magic, was able to transfer a
call to the other side of the room at the press
of a button.
The people
The upgrade has been put together by a team
of three working full-time, plus several part-
timers and freelancers, at the secret HQ. Each
member came from a different part of the
country, so it was decided that they should all
come together at a central location.
A Midlands site was chosen, primarily
because of the availability of cheap office
space at an Acorn-friendly company, and
secondly to signal a move away from the
traditional Acorn Cambridge
way of doing things.
Andrew, Justin and Matthew
had previously worked together
on games for R-Comp
Interactive. However, they've
never worked under the same
roof as their work can usually be
completed and submitted to
Andrew by e-mail.
All three now share a house
about ten miles from the office
and commute to work daily.
Apparently, the team had great
difficulty in persuading the
estate agent they weren't
students when it came to renting
the house, despite the suits,
business cards and other
trimmings of young executives.
Sharing a house with work-
mates might not seem like a very
appealing idea at first sight, you
end up seeing the same two
people all day every day.
Fortunately, the three RISC OS
bachelors still seem to be getting
along very well with each other,
even though they have been together for
around two months now.
On the subject of the team's evening
activities, Andrew uttered: 'It's pretty jovial,
there's usually an MP3 track playing in the
background. Most rvenings, a game of network
Doom is played. So yes, it's generally a very
relaxed atmosphere' .
The MP3 (a popular compressed sound-file
format) thing doesn't just stop there either.
The office server has many free tracks stored
on it, and additional music comes courtesy of
the team's CD collection. The music was
generally of a high standard, Meat Loaf [high
standard? - Ed] and Beautiful South [Yes!]
albums were noted, along with offerings from
other less mainstream groups. Some people
will be pleased to hear that the team have
acquired a rather speedy MP3 player module
which might just be included with the final
release of the operating system.
While on the subject of music, Andrew
drew my attention to the following: T he official
music of the RISC OS 4 source was Tubular Bells
2. It was playing all the way back from Cambridge
at Upm at night in blinding snow when the deal
was finally done after 6-7 hours of negotiating'
At the time of the interview, each team
member was working from about 9am until 7-
Benchmarks
Test
RISC OS 3.7
RISC OS 4.0
Improvement
Comment
ArmSI speed index*}
3.512
55.269
+ 27%
Tests processor performance
Doom+($maller the better)
9536
7102
+ 34%
Single tasking game, not
regarded as OS dependant!
Web page render
1.60s
1.08s
+ 49%
Internal server home page
Desktop responsiveness
Although not quantifiable, desktop appears around 40% smoother
Please note that in tests, ARM 6 10/710 users observed much larger improvements, especially compared to RISC OS 3.5 or 3.6.
http://www.acornuser.com June 1999
Tiw of the senior
programmers; Mathew
(left) and Justin (right)
8pm with slight variations from day to day. The
three share lunch in the local Tesco store and
discuss progress as well as social matters. These
hours will probably increase as the deadline
approaches but hopefully the team will remain
sane throughout.
Andrew also commented: 'For fun, we like to
catch Red Dwarf, and I personally watch the good
movies on Channel 5 and of course enjoy the odd bit of
gaming if I have five minutes, but that hasn't happened
a lot lately.'
Andrew's comments are echoed by the other
members of the team who paint a similar picture
of a RISC OS bachelor life. They are all keen to
stress that work is generally kept to the office and
other projects including those outstanding for RCI
are taken care of at home in the evenings.
Justin Fletcher is a lively character, and from
what he tells me I understand he's fulfilling a
dream by working on RISC OS. He had wanted to
work for Acorn themselves but now, perhaps, he's
doing the next best thing. He told me all about
how it is possible to judge a programmer's skill by
the number of comments they use. Initially, they
tended to fill every other line with comments but
then it tends to level out at an acceptable quantity.
However, Sophie Wilson of Acorn, who did a lot of
work on ARM BASIC, felt she was so good there
was no need to even leave spaces in her code. For
this reason - and this reason only, you understand
- Sophie is Justin's idol.
Matthew Bullock is also talkative, but is the
quieter of the three, at least while I was there. He
wrote the freeware 3D Patch utility, and converted
the PC game Heroes of Might and Magic ll for RCI.
Matthew is mostly working on the Filer, FileCore
and also the Window Manager due to his past
programming experience.
So, it would appear that the working
conditions are rather ordinary, the people are also
fairly normal, and their habits are those that would
be expected from any group of programmers in
their situation. Well then, 'why the article?' I hear
you ask. Well, now I'll tell you a little about the
upgrade itself.
The upgrade
It would be fair to say that RISC OS 4 is the most
radical upgrade to our operating system since
version 2 appeared way back in the late 80s. It
signals an important change in direction for the
whole platform.
Not only will RISC OS 4 give large speed
increases on existing hardware, but a lot of
thought has gone into its development. Rather
than isolating themselves from the outside world,
RISCOS Ltd have been taking note of people's
suggestions and have incorporated many minor
features which users requested. Of course, it's also
the first primary operating system for Acorn
machines not entirely written by Acorn
themselves, and this is perhaps the most
significant achievement.
It may surprise some that the source code for
RISC OS is about 250Mb raw, but fills several
gigabytes when all the code changes are logged
using CVS. The operating system is largely written
in assembler, with some of the more recent stuff in
C. There's also a bit of BASIC in there too for good
measure.
As with all versions of RISC OS, Andrew and
the team will be leaving a little bit of themselves in
the code. In v3.5 and above, clicking 'menu' four
times over the author field in the task manager's
info box will reveal a hidden scroll text. Andrew
wouldn't let on what this team's little 'feature'
would be but apparently, it has to do with the cult
TV show, Buffi/ The Vampire Slayer. Major changes
June 1999
http://www.acornuser.com
include: Massive performance increases. On
average RISC OS 4 is 30-50% faster than RISC
OS 3.7. New filer and filecore support long
filenames and as many files per directory as
reasonably necessary. LFAU (large file
allocation unit) is implemented, meaning that
up to 30% more free space can be created on
large hard drives with lots of small files. The
popular 3D window patch by Matthew
Bullock has been incorporated into the
operating system. Screensaver support has
been increased phenomenally, with support
even planned for some third-party saver
formats.
More applications will be bundled with
the operating system. These will
hopefully include a basic word processor
with ability to read/write Microsoft
Word 6/7 files. CDFS will be updated
to include DOS file extension mapping
by default in a similar way to current
ADFS drives.
Time was spent trying to secure PhotoReal
printer drivers for the release, but due to the
small size of the market, it was deemed
unfeasible to produce a new set for the
operating system. However, a minimal
Internet connectivity suite will be included,
along the lines of that seen in Windows ' 95 and
higher.
The so-called CDFS 3 which Acorn were
well on the way towards completing has
unfortunately been abandoned in this release
due to compatibility problems with existing
drives. Instead, the existing CDFS has been
improved to tide us over until the next
version.
Many other smaller changes are planned,
Andrew has very firm beliefs on how the final
product should come together: ' RISC OS 1ms
always tended to be lacking in the niceties , it's
always had very good guts and a very good core of
an operating system, but Acorn only ever seemed
to go 90% of the way and never bother to polish it
off In Windows, they tend to do all the polishing
but don't actually write an operating system to go
under it'
Andrew also points out that when an
operating system is a company's key product,
it is important that it has a nice appearance
and lots of nice features, because people won't
have meaty hardware to sway their buying
decision.
The future
RISCOS Ltd are keen to stress that their
work will not stop with the release of RISC
OS 4. Provided they make enough money
to stay afloat from sales of the upgrade
and also memberships to the RISC OS
Foundation 'fan club', further improvements
to RISC OS 4 will be released. Hopefully,
a fully 32-bit version of the operating system
will be released sometime next year. This will
cater for new hardware which will not
necessarily rely upon the standard Acorn
VI DC display chip and other proprietary
hardware, and will also work with the newest
ARM processors.
RISC OS 4 will include support for
intermediate upgrades supplied on disc
and soft-loaded in a similar fashion to
current development versions of the OS.
This means that once a user has the version
4.0 ROMs fitted, upgrades will be possible
at a far lower cost than that of full set of
new ROMs. The whole core operating
system will be remaining on ROM chips
for some time to come, primarily for ease
of use. A machine which has a ROM
based operating system does not,
in theory, need any sort of disc at all
to start up.
The People
Andrew Rawnsley
Date of birth: 13th October, 1977
Hometown: Knutsford, near Manchester
Programming languages:
Primarily C. I started out writing in BASIC, hut soon realised that if I wanted to achieve anything fancy, I'd need
to be using C. I've also done a hit in Java and Pascal, although not much. Recent involvements have led to a fair
knowledge of JavaScript. I've also done work in several scripting languages, and of course, my HTML isn't too
had either.
Past programming experience:
HTMLEdit vl - 4+, Web Designers Toolkit, several other RCI utilities. I've never really been much of a PD coder
- 1 always felt that if I was going to write a program, I wanted to do it to the best of my ability, and that meant
spending months working on it, and I kind of like a little recompense for that.
Matthew Bullock
Date of birth: 3rd September 1976
Hometown: Bedford
Programming languages:
C, C++, various assemblers (ARM, x86, Z80, 6502, ZB and some other rather obscure ones) BASIC, Visual Basic,
QBASIC, COBOL, Lisp, Forth, Fortran, Pascal and a few other odd ones.
Past programming experiences:
Lots of dodgy patches for RISC OS including 3DPatch, Pinboard ROM patch, windowdragfix and a bunch of
other ones. Quite a bit of stuff for R-Comp including PNG and JPEG image converters, Syndicate, HoMM2 and
some stuff on Abuse for the NC.
Justin Fletcher
Date of birth: 17th September, 1976
Programming languages:
Procedural: BBC Basic, QBASIC, GWBasic, BywaterBASIC, C++, Pascal, Prolog, Perl, Logo,
Td/Tk, Lisp, Java, CLIPS
Functional: Miranda, SML
Assembler: ARM (ObjAsni/JFPatch), 6502 (BBC)
Shells/scripts: esh, bash, mnita
Silly: Reptol, WVV+, Zap
Past programming experience:
Commercial: Doom+, Heretic and Hexen.
Freeware:
• Ports: Pine/Pico (partial - pico works fine); CLIPS (programming language); HTMLTidy (David Raggett's Tidy
program)
• Re-implementations: IRServer (the only RISC OS IRC server); DravvPlug (the first freely available RISC OS
plugin outside Acorn); MimeMap (freeware implementation of ANTs module); GMail (most powerful RISC OS
CLI mailer); Forecast (updating JPEG fetcher); LPRd (configurable line printer daemon); SysLog (remote
logging system); EDict (generic RISC OS Diet server); DNServer (the only RISC OS DNS server); TelnetD
(simple telnet server)
• Original:
Programming: JFShared (BASIC programming library); FormEdExt (extensively improved version of FormEd);
ESockets (simple internet socket interface); IServices (simple internet services database)
Internet: JFinger (cool finger client); JFTerm (generic line-based ANSI-colour terminal/talker/IRC client);
IFProxy (generic proxy); MyRC (simple 1 day desktop IRC client); TalkerD (simple talker); NetOXO (o's and
x's over the internet); NetC4 (connect 4 over the internet); WimpCTCP protocol and apps (generic IRC
extensions); Imagen (the first RISC OS image map editor)
Utilities: ExitOut (easy way to prevent shutdown); DDA (Dynamic Areas for pre-RISC PCs); RecErrors (Wimp
error message recorder); SquigglyPipes (unix style CLI piping); ReformC (reformats C code for publication);
MP3Encode (front end for CMPA); MP3ID3 (desktop ID3 editor)
Colaboration: RealAudio (from free source, with Kira et al); MakeARPC (fantasy RPC, with David Thomas)
To conclude
Prior to my visit to RISCOS Ltd, I was
somewhat sceptical as to how efficient
the programming effort would be. However,
the things I saw and heard on that day
assured me that RISC OS does indeed
have some sort of viable future as a home,
business and educational platform, and
that future is bright and in more than
capable hands.
New hardware will be needed soon
though, but you will hear more about that in
the coming months. If you're reading this at
the Wakefield show, there may well be a few
hardware-related surprises dotted about the
show for you to enjoy.
Thanks...
Big thanks go out to all at RISCOS Ltd for
their cooperation, namely Andrew Rawnsley,
Justin Fletcher and Matthew Bullock. I'd also
like to thank Richard Goodwin for his help
with the interview questions, and finally my
good friend James who lent me his
Psion Series 3c. I =4 I ■!>
http;//wvvvv.acornuser.com June 1999 V,
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tel 01344 875 201 • fax 01344 875 202 • www.eff.co.uk • sales@eff.co.uk
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RISC OS 4
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We are able to offer a full
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Filecore/long filenames etc.
Call or e-mail us for more details...
Alsy,
stems
Alsystems Ltd
47 Winchester Road, Four Marks,
Alton, Hampshire, GU34 5HG, UK
Tel: +44 (0)1420 561111 Fax: +44 (0)1420 561100
E-Mail: sales@alsystems.co.uk WWW: httpV/www.alsystems.co.uk
Internal Acorn
Modem Card
A supply of 28. 8K Internal
Modem Podule Cards are
now available from Alsystems
for Acorn RISC PC computers.
The advantage of an internal
modem card is that it frees up
the RISC PC's Serial Port and
does not require an extra
power socket unlike external
modems.
A disc is included containing
all the necessary instructions/
software (including Block
Drivers) for use with Acorn
COMMS/Internet related
software, including Voyager,
ANT Internet Suite and Acorn
Browse software.
PowerATAPI
PowerATAPI
PowerlDE
PowerJaz
PowerJaz
PowerROM
Power-tec
Power-tec
Ultra SCSI III
PowerZip
PowerZip
PowerZip
Prices
with internal Iomega ATAPI Zip drive: £99
Writable Driver only:
Driver:
with JazTraveller Interface:
Driver:
Upgrade (state make of SCSI card):
Fast SCSI II card:
Ultra SCSI III card:
Upgrades:
vl .Ox Standard Upgrade:
v2.0x Standard Upgrade:
with Iomega Zip 100 drive:
with Iomega Zip 250 drive:
Driver (for Zip 1 00, 250 and Plus):
ModemCard 28. 8K Modem Podule Card:
RISC OS 4
SCSI Drive
Upgrade:
9GB IBM 7,200RPM:
£35
£25
£49
£25
£35
£135
£175
£110
£49
£115
£175
£25
£35
£99
£250
NB: All prices exclude VAT and carriage.
W e can't all be great at drawing and
designing. Some of us just want to
knock together an image or poster
in a short space of time, or add
visual spice to a text laden report or
dissertation without too much effort.
In answer to this need, companies have
produced clip art discs containing hundreds,
perhaps even thousands of bitmap and vector
images, suitable for third party use and free of
copyright. Two recent additions to the RISC
OS market are PublishArt 98 from SmartDTP,
and APDL's Clip Art CD 4.
PublishArt is Windows compatible,
whereas Clip Art CD 4 is specific to our
Clip art is divided between DTP based work
and Internet specific bitmaps. The images
range from symbols to newsletter templates,
icons to figures, backdrops to stencils. The
collection is very design oriented. APDL's
offering, on the other hand, offers a range of
more situation-based graphics, as well as
design and illustration artwork.
The APDL disc is a well-structured affair,
offering the user three ways of browsing
through its content. By far the
best way is the supplied CDView software.
This acts as a Filer, allowing the user to
double-click on folders, until the required file
is found. Double-clicking on any file
Touch of
Stephen Scott compares two recent
clip-art compilations to help you
add extra polish to your work...
platform. PublishArt 98 is the latest in a yearly
line of clip art discs from Smart DTP. Discs
such as these, containing so many files
(around 6500), need to be clearly categorised
and easy to navigate. PublishArt uses an
HTML interface to give you a general
overview of the disc's content.
Part of this interface is a help and hints
guide, explaining how the clip art can be used.
APDL's interface
displays a simple thumbnail in a window. The
viewer can show sprites, drawfiles and
Artworks files with no trouble. This is
altogether a less time-consuming affair than
having many programs loaded up for
uncompressing and displaying a file, only to
discover it's not the one you want.
Alternatively you can look through the
large text file which details every image on the
disc. Using the search facility
common to every text-editor,
the user can quickly browse
for the kind of image that
they want - the files are
quite sensibly named.
The range of images is
very extensive, and has been
collated from a wide range
of sources. Food, drink,
transport, medical diagrams,
sport, buildings, and many
more categories are there for
the taking. The quality
though, is varied. But
delving deeper yields rich
rewards, such as various
Artworks files by
Christopher Jarman,
XX
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£3 BATHERS
CAILLEBO
CHILDHOOD
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colourful and intricate in their detail. Some of
Jarman's work is also on the PublishArt CD,
so you can't go wrong on either disc if you are
a fan of his work.
Most bitmap images were black and white
only. Some had the distinct 8-bit, bulletin
board feel to them - rather pixellated,
restricting their use to screen-based work.
So, are the discs really worth their asking
price? It is difficult to critique the overall
quality of these products, as discs of this kind
will offer something for everyone. The
question is whether such resources can be
relied upon time and time again. Ease of use is
also part of this equation, and the APDL
offering has by far the best approach.
If you're looking for an image bank,
APDL's product may be for you, while Publish
Art98 caters more for those with design in
mind. You may find you end up buying both.
For schools sharing PCs and Acorns,
PublishArt is the better solution as it is
Windows compatible, and offers a free site
licence. APDL also offer a site licence in return
for a modest fee. But in conclusion, the APDL
disc has the edge in quality, usability
and value for money.
Product details
Product: Clip Art CD 4
Price: £19.50
Supplier: APDL
Address: 39 Knighton Park Road,
Sydenham, London, SE26 5RN
Tel: 0181 778 2659
Fax: 0181 488 0487
Web: http://www.apdl.co.uk/
Product: Publish Art98
Price: £19.95 - Launch price
Supplier: SmartDTP
Address: 36 Park Road, Duffield,
Belper, DE56 4GR
Tel: 01332 842 803
Fax: 01332 842 803
E-mail: Parrygroup@intecc.co.uk
Web: http://vvvvw.intec.co.uk/
users/ parry group/
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Font
E asy Font Professional is
probably the best Font
management software on
Acorn machines. This
superb piece of software
provides an easy to-use, yet
powerful interface.
Easy Font Pro allows you
to add fonts easily and
quickly, as well as allowing
the fonts to be viewed for
simple selection.
Other features of Easy Font
Professional include:
• The ability to allow you
to group fonts.
• Up to 40% compression
• Fonts which load only when a
particular application is loaded
• Fonts can be accessed on other
media, eg. CDs
Easy Font Professional comes on two DD
floppy discs. One contains the application,
while the other contains several styles of
font. It also comes with a printed manual
which contains instructions on how to use
Easy Font Professional to its full ability. As
well as this a quick reference guide is
included which shows each button and its
function, plus the keyboard shortcuts.
Please send me:
Easy Font Pro
□ lJK-£40
I I Europe - £43
□ World- £45
Font Pack
□ UK -£10
I I Europe - £12
□ World- £14
□ hd or □ DD
Prices include postage and packaging and VAT
I wish to pay by:
I I Cheque/postal order (payable to Tau Press Ltd)
I | Credit Card (Visa /Barclaycard/ Mastercard /Access)
Name
Address..
E-mail .
Credit Card No:
Expiry Date:
/
..Postcode-
Name on card:
Signature:
I I Please tick here if you do not wish to receive promotional information from other companies aiwos
Send your order to: Easy font pro, Tau Press, Media House, Adlington Park, Macclesfield SK10 4NP
Font Pack
Want some more fonts to use
with Easy Font professional? Or
maybe you just want to increase
your range of fonts? If so, then
the Font Pack is for you. It
features over 50 different styles of
font giving you a wide choice of
type-faces to choose from.
For Easy Font Professional you will
need a minimurii of RISC OS 3.1 or
greater with 2Mb of RAM and a
harddrive
y June 1 999 http://www.acornuser.com
wimp C
Calling functions
by point
T his month I'll be investigating pointers to
functions, and explaining some of the reasons
why they can be particularly useful, especially
when developing the shell of an application.
Obviously, whenever pointers are mentioned we know
we'll be referring to blocks of memory. At this stage we
should be comfortable with the notion that if, for
example, an array a[20] has been created, the value of a
on its own gives the starting position of the array in
memory.
We've been using that feature to pass the addresses
of memory buffers to the OS when making SWI calls,
but given this start address, it's also possible to access
array elements by memory offset.
Functions can also be thought of as blocks of
memory and, although their contents aren't editable,
it's still possible to call the function concerned if you
know its starting location. By using a pointer to store
the starting address of a function, we can call that
function without needing to know its name. In this
way, we can create a link to a procedure that can be
changed as many times as we want during the
execution of the application.
In order to determine the start address of a
function, we use its name without any brackets or
arguments, in exactly the same way that we find the
address of an array block. However, we
still need to create a pointer &Q9M
variable to hold this
information, and that's not
quite so straightforward.
The syntax might look a
little confusing, but it does
make sense once you
understand where the
components come from.
In fact, it's very similar to the
format we use when we're prototyping functions at the
beginning of a program - here's an example. For the
function shown below:
int func(int x, int y) {
return x + y;
}
the function pointer declaration would look like this:
int (*funcptr) (int, int);
The brackets around *funcptr are required to stop the
C compiler from working itself into a frenzy. Other
than that, you can see that it is indeed very similar to
the actual function prototype, shown below:
int func(int, int);
Once you've declared the function pointer in this way,
you're free to use it as you see fit. Here's how we'd call
func using the above function pointer:
funcptr = func;
result = (*funcptr) (1, 2);
It's even possible to make use of these pointers as formal
parameters within a function definition, meaning you
can write a procedure that accepts the name of a function
along with its other arguments.
So why are function pointers useful? You could be
forgiven for thinking that they add an unnecessary
complication to the whole process of writing a program.
It's true that pointers always add an extra layer of
complexity, but very often the controlled inclusion of
pointers can give you more freedom in just how you
structure your code.
Up until now, functions have always been static
objects - we can decide whether or not to call them by
using standard C decision statements, but that's about the
limit. By accessing our functions with pointers, we can
start using them in many different ways - for instance,
you can bring shades of C++ programming to your code
by associating particular functions with data objects.
In our case we have a particular problem to solve -
we've started writing a library of routines designed to
make the programmer's life a little bit easier. However,
these routines can't be included automatically, and it's
up to the programmer to build them into his or her code
- as appropriate. In this situation, the programmer
still ends up doing a lot of work from scratch,
k and it would be nice if this workload could
B& be minimised.
1 One method might be to include a pre-
written core program containing all of the
basic features of the WIMP, which coders
. could then add to and modify. Using existing
*8*^ techniques, there has been no easy way of adding
functionality to an older application, short of
modifying the existing source code.
Now that we can use pointers to functions, the
situation has changed somewhat. We can use these
pointers as placeholders, referring to a generic function
that performs a simple version of the task until the
programmer replaces it with a more complete routine.
For instance, the application kernel could contain basic
window redrawing routines that capture the appropriate
WIMP messages and deal with the moving, opening and
closing of a window.
These would suffice until more intricate graphics
were required, and at this stage a new redrawing
function would be registered to take the place of the
existing one. Without pointers, this would have required
a change in the source code; with pointers it could be
done on the fly. There are quite a few more applications
for function pointers; I hope you find them
useful. See you next time. UkU#
Steve
Mum ford
looks at
the details
http://www.acornuser.com June 1999
* BEYOlin
HERETIC
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version inc. V/
"HTMLEdit is the
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Acorn User
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worth considering "
HTMLEdit
Next Generation
WWW Authoring For RiscOS
Acorn Publisher
All the tools you need for £1 05!
The press agree with us when we say that our RiscOS Web
Authoring solutions set new standards in power and ease of use.
Now, in our quest to produce an even more integrated and
powerful solution, we've put together a single pack containing:
HTMLEdit 4+: Java support, sound and music, link and image
checking, syndax colouring and OLE.... £53
Enhanced Web Toolkit: Visual frames, tables, animations,
maps, palette control, drawfile conversion.., £30
WebSpell: A complete HTML-aware spelling checker £15
Webster XL: The latest version of our hot new browser with
frames, tables, forms, sound and JavaScript. £25
Also, check out our new SiteMaster for absolute control over your whole site! £25
R-Comp, 22 Robert Moffat, High Legh, Knutsford, Cheshire WA16 6PS
"Using the program
is simplicity itself"
Archimedes World
Locksmith £15
& PCSound Pro 2
now out too! £40
SiteSeer
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Tel: 01925 755043 Fax: 01925 757377
Email: rcomp@rcomp.co.uk rci@rcomp.co.uk
Laa
Alasdair Bailey
gives the low-down
on the latest and forth-
coming games releases
T his month's Game Show is a bit of a mixed bag,
there's updates on a number of exciting
projects along with news of what's at the
Wakefield show for gamers, plus a final look at
BotKiller 2.
Show news
By the time you read this you'll probably either be at
the Wakefield show or back at home wondering why
in action yet, it's sure to add many more hours of fun to
an already addictive game. Heroes of Might and Magic
2 was reviewed by Steve Mumford in the january issue,
but this new add-on should create a whole new
experience. The pack contains four new campaigns,
each containing many new buildings, items and heroes,
along with features to allow for more structured
gameplay. The add-on should retail for around the £20
mark and, although it sounds like a lot for some extra
levels, it should be well worth it.
Although R-Comp have nothing radically new at the
^ show, there is still more in the pipeline.
Andrew Rawnsley, R-Comp's front man and
ft business partner is currently looking into
■ converting a PC real-time strategy game
which I can't tell you about just yet. Suffice
to say, this title was very popular on the PC
i— >r- r 5 r, so it should be yet another fine conversion
”1 = i. when we see it on the Acorn side. R-Comp
: 1 £ are also working on converting not one, but
-. vlffil 1 1 three flight simulations. More details will be
| - | available in coming months, but it's good to
sims are on the way when
you missed it. I won't go into the particulars of the
show itself because I'm the games writer, someone else
■"■"■g* see some
gS the last one we saw was Star Fighter 3000.
19 E3 Ar,ex Software will be travelling all the way
'Y from Germany to be present at the show.
Copies of Exodus, Ankh and the recently
released BotKiller 2 will be available, along
with team members who will be willing to
chat about Artex's work on the Acorn
platform. Their new real-time strategy game, TEK, was
initially due for release at the show but it's unclear at
this stage as to whether it will be or not. It is possible
has to tell you about shows. I'll just tell you about all
things gaming-related at the show.
Sadly, R-Comp have no new game conversions to
launch, but they will be present selling all their titles
along with a couple of upgrades if we're lucky. The
long-overdue Doom+ bi-linear filtering upgrade should
be available to existing users, as should the new
expansion pack for their excellent Heroes of Might and
Magic 2 conversion. Bi-linear filtering was present in R-
Comp's Hexen and Heretic releases which were
reviewed last issue. But in case you were terribly ill and
unable to buy a copy, bi-linear filtering is a method of
smoothing wall and floor textures, along with anything
else you might fancy, in order to eradicate that horrid
pixellation which occurs when close up.
The new Heroes of Might and Magic expansion
pack, The Price of Loyalty , will also be available at the
show, and although I haven't seen the enhanced game
Bi-linear Filtering
Notice the smoother overall appearance of the wall detail when the filtering is turned on.
With filtering
Without filtering
M
http://www.acornuser.com )une 1999
m
June 1999
that Artcx will be taking
advance orders for the game at
the show hut I doubt it will be
ready for you to take home.
Whatever happens; Jan Klose
has promised not to let us
down, and there'll be a couple
of machines present to
demonstrate TEK's current
state of development.
Tau Press will be present at
the show, selling copies of the
new CD version of Destiny.
The game, originally released
back in the summer of 1998,
was fraught with bugs, and the
initial Internet reviews weren't
too pleased with it at all.
However, since then, Robert
Templeman has found time to
tidy the game up and improve ^ mock-up of the ( hi MR hnrdwnrc
the graphics in time for a CD
marketplace as we now know it. For example, Harry
Decker of Nottingham writes:
"With the cancellation of Phoebe , do you think the
Acorn gaming scene has a future ? What new hardware
is there on the horizon to take Phoebe's place?"
Sadly, I don't think that the gaming scene can have
any viable future unless new hardware appears soon.
Having said that, we have yet to see any native title
take the StrongARM to its true limits. Perhaps Iron
Dignity will show us what this platform capable of
but it doesn't look like that will go on sale before the
end of the year. There are a couple of other home-
grown games on the way, all will be revealed in the
coming months.
The next major hardware development may well be
the Rise PC motherboard upgrade from
Millipede. If done properly, this could
effectively give us a Phoebe in a Rise PC's
box. Sadly, the ChiOS project to put a
variant of RISC OS and a StrongARM
processor inside an off the shelf PC has been
shelved after a major beneficiary was forced
to withdraw from the project. It's early days
yet, we're just going to have to wait and see
what materialises.
Another query a couple of people have
sent me concerns the original version of
Doom. James Dean from my home town of
Leicester survived the car accident to write:
"When I load DOOM , it occasionally quits
while looking at the WAD file with the error
'Template magnifier not found ' what am I
doing wrong?"
Well done, you've discovered one of the
little quirks present in Doom which was
fixed by the Doom+ upgrade. It happens
when another program starts up or plots
some windows while Doom is initialising.
You can quite simply work around it by not
using the computer while Doom starts up.
If you have any questions, no matter how
trivial, don't hesitate to get in touch with me
at games@acornuser.com or by snail mail via
http://www.acornuser.com
release. I won't be reviewing the game here for obvious
reasons, but if you'd like to read a review before
buying, check out either of the main Internet gaming
sites; there's a full review on Acorn Arcade at
http://www.acornarcade.com or alternatively take a
look at Gareth Moore's Acorn Gaming site at
http://www.acorn-gaming.org.uk.
APDL will be launching a number of new CD-based
game compilations at the show. Keep an eye on this
column for more news and reviews of all the Wakefield
releases.
Questions
A number of readers have been sending me questions
lately with regard to the future of the games
Product: BotKiller 2
Price: £15 (including VAT and P&P)
Supplier: WAG Software, 5 Queens
Close, East Markham, Nr
Newark, Notts, NG22 OQY
E-mail: richard@wilsontigger.
demon.co.uk
WWW: http:// www. wilsontigger.
demon.co.uk/
the usual editorial address. Although I will endeavour to
reply to all questions, I can't promise to publish
everything you send.
BotKiller 2 Revisited
After my review of a slightly pre-release version of
Artex's new platformer in the April issue, the team have
been hard at work and an even better version has just
landed on my desk. The game was due for release way
back in February, but unfortunately the person
employed to do the sound effects was involved in a car
accident which delayed proceedings somewhat.
Anyway, the game is now finished and it's looking quite
a bit better than before.
Level design has been greatly improved, and a
very nice difficulty curve now exists, along with some
later levels which will tax even the most skilled
games player. The very prominent puzzle-solving angle
still exists, something which brings a very welcome
break from slaying robots. No new in-game elements
have been added, but those that were present before
have been utilised rather nicely. End of level baddies
are now present in the release version and, as with
all titles, they add a nice twist to the game. More
scenery has been added, giving levels a much nicer
look and feel.
The in-game shop has also been improved. Details
of your current armoury are displayed, so there is no
need to flick back into the game to decide what to buy.
A shop is also available on almost every level now,
~°1 1 ^ v) ~
L e v el Infer m a t i 6 n
This is the last level.
You Mill be confronted with the
REACTOR ROBOT
descend any deeper*.
r r
V 'm>
•\ ft'wl brief in g
something I recommended to the team after seeing the
initial version.
Character animations have been improved, but
unfortunately my criticism of the slow speed of
movement still stands. A nice dying animation, along
with improved menu and title screens have also been
added and everything comes together very nicely now.
BotKiller 2 should be in every platformer addict's
collection, and at a price of £15, non-
believers can't go far wrong either.
Product details
hU|)://www.ac«rnuser.tom June 1 999
Free
• SA RPC 600, 203Mb HD, 5+2Mb
RAM, 17irt colour monitor, Turbo
Driver, MIDI interface,
Impression , 100 "look" fonts. £700
ono. Tel: 01691 780 452
(Shropshire) Lesley Applebee
• Inherited A3010, VDU, printer,
mouse - need manual. Tel: 01386
861 306 (Pershore, Worcs) A C
Osman
• Acorn Electron, disk drive, tape
drive, printer, ROM drive,
software, manuals, cables,
monitor, magazines. £100 ono.
Tel: 07788 968 224 (Herts) 7pm -
10pm. Peter Mayne
• A3000, RISC OS 3.1, 2Mb RAM,
colour monitor, VGC. £110. Tel:
01372 815 184 (Surrey) D
Goodrick
• RPC700, 17Mb RAM, 450Mb HD,
17 inch monitor, PC card, CD-
ROM, lots of software, excellent
condition. £700. Tel: 01652 654
274
• Urgently required: serial port
upgrade kit and anything econet,
both for my faithful old A3000.
Also in search of a HD. Any
donations gratefully received as I
am a poor student with a passion
for Acorns. Please Tel: 01722 326
731 (Wilts) Richard Godwin
• RPC600, 20+2Mb RAM, 540Mb
HD, CD-ROM, scanlight 256,
speakers, lots of software and
games including OvationPro ,
Artworks, Personal Accounts4,
SimCity 2000, Exedos, StarFighter
3000. £700. Tel: 01923 779 141
(Watford) Andrew Dickinson
• A3010, 2Mb RAM, AKF52
monitor, Epson LQ100 printer -
original boxes and manuals,
software, excellent condition.
£200 ono. Tel: 01299 270 746
(Shropshire) Ross
• Software for sale: TurboDriver
for Cannon BJC800 including
fonts disc, cable, etc, £20;
Genesis +, £10; CableNews
presentation package, £15; Tabs
3D net design package, £15. Tel:
01953 681 684 (Suffolk) Mike
Bailey
• A3010 learning curve, 80Mb HD,
monitor, plenty of software
(games + utilities). £125. Tel:
01395 514 069 (Sidmouth, Devon)
David Pilkington
• Acorn hardware and software,
both 8-bit and 32-bit range:
games, utils, business, DTP.
Plenty of BBC's with DFS,
A3000's and upgrades available.
Tel: 0151 637 0993 (Wirral) K
Swift
• Please help me I am a student
with a keen underlying interest
in Acorn computers, but I have
no money. I am down on my
hands and knees begging for any
software or hardware that you
want to donate. Please Tel: 01722
326 731 (Wilts) Richard Godwin
• SA RPC 233, 37Mb RAM, 1.7Gb
HD, 24xCD-ROM, x586 PC card
(software+DOS7). £750 ono. Tel:
0151 928 8207 (Liverpool) Alan
Church
• A3000s and A3020s for sale. All
with 4Mb RAM, RISC OS 3,
monitors, SCSI cards and in
perfect condition. A3000, £100.
A3020, £150. Also A3020 bits:
4Mb RAM, £20; keyboards, £20;
disc drivers, £15. Tel: 01953 681
684 (Suffolk) Mike Bailey
• A3000 RISC OS 3.11, 4Mb RAM,
80Mb HD, manuals, software
including DTP and clip art,
monitor, printer. £150 ono. Tel:
01425 279 7474 (Dorset) Mr
Wilson
• SA RPC, 20+3Mb RAM, 2Gb HD,
8xCD-ROM, DX4-100 PC card +
Win95, PM ISO MIDI, AKF60
monitor, Artworks CD, Ovation,
Midiworks, Rhapsody3, games,
£700 ono. Tel: 01487 843 637
(Cambridgeshire) in evenings. C
Sinnett
• Wanted: Lemming Tribe software
for use on A3000, can anyone
help please. Tel: 01934 521 886
(Somerset) after 18:00hrs. G
Burton
• ISV Tenulator' graphic pen,
complete Acorn /PC software,
hardly used, original box. £18.
Tel: 0181 579 2652 (daytime), Tel:
01494 875 492 (evenings) G
Greenfield (Bucks)
• RPC600, 16Mb RAM, 420Mb HD,
2xCD-ROM, 2nd slice, no
monitor. £300. A5000, 4MB RAM,
HD, monitor, etc. £175. Epson
stylus 800 mono printer + turbo
driver. £55. Tel: 01268 734 215.
Max
• A3010, 4Mb RAM, 256Mb HD,
CD-ROM, monitor, complete set
of 3.5 inch cover discs, Acorn
mags from 1980's to present day.
£400. Tel: 0191 565 4024
(Sunderland) Robert
• A5000, 4Mb RAM, 428Mb HD,
Floating-Point Accelerator chip,
RISC OS 3.11, manuals, boxed,
some software, used at home.
£190. Tel: 01276 65 512
(Camberley, Surrey) M Hodgson
• RPC, SA upgrade, 5Mb RAM,
Sibelius7, Melidi sequencer, other
software, keyboard, mouse,
monitor. £Offers. Tel: 01460 63030
(Chard, Somerset) G Harper
• Simcity 2000 £10, Turbodriver £10,
Impression Style £20, Easy C £20,
Hearsay £10, Pipedream £10, Stunt
Racer £10, 500DD discs £25. E-
mail: ashcox@bigfoot.com or Tel:
01628 631072. Ashley Cox
• RPC600 with 700 CPU, 48Mb
DRAM, 1.2Gb HD, 8xCDRom,
586 133MHz PC card, Windows
95/98 very good condition £600,
also MIDI max card £20, RPC600
CPU card £50, plus lots of
software. E-mail:
k.rolfe@virgin.net or Tel: 01703
868695
• A5000 80Mb hard drive 4Mb
RAM. Mitsubishi BW scanner
with motor drive. 14 inch AFK18
monitor. £350. E-mail:
mac@cercot.demon.co.uk or Tel:
01423 884466 (Harrogate) Kieron
McGeever
• RPC 600 2-slice 24+1 Mb RAM,
400Mb HD, CD-ROM, AKF60
Monitor, MIDI Card, 486DX PC
Card, lots of software including
Impression Publisher, Artworks, MS
Office Pro plus game pad and
Simon The Sorcerer. £650 ono. E-
mail: 95tjb@eng.cam.ac.uk or Tel:
01223 276170 (Cambridge) Tim
Boughton
• Going fast! Only Birds of War,
Virtual Golf (and Augusta), Stunt
Racer (and tracks) and Break 147
left! Just £10 each. Tel: 0958
746440. Steven Spooner.
• User port/MIDI £20, network
cards £40, external CD-ROM
drives £50, RAM 2-4MB: £20,
StrongARM upgrade £100, PC
cards, £25. Tel: 0116 2741633 after
6pm
• RPC700, 18Mb, RISC OS 3.6,
812Mb HD, 4XCD, 586 PC Card,
14" Monitor, Ultimate Doom,
£500 o.n.o. will pay delivery. Tel:
01224 571894 (evenings).
Campbell (Aberdeen)
• WANTED URGENTLY: Low cost
copy of Acorn's Toolbox for
freeware student programer. All
offers please - E-mail
peter@everymans.com or Tel:
01743 23 12 48 (Shrewsbury)
Peter Price
• RPC 700, 26+2Mb RAM, 850Mb
HD, CJE-133 Card, AFK-60
Monitor, £600. E-mail:
u6f44@ugf.keele.ac.uk or Tel:
01782 245204. Andy
• Giving away or throwing away
Acorn User, Micro User & Acorn
Computing magazines. Late 80's
& 90's. Tel: 0118 973 0587 or E-
mail gordon@soundmasters
.co.uk
• Acorn A3010, 4Mb, 120Mb HD,
14" SVGA monitor, Easiword,
variousgames and new Acorn
boot sequence. 195 ono. Contact
Damian on 01225318464 or
ee6dflg@bath.ac.uk
• A3000 RISC OS 3.11, 120Mb HD
(with spare), 4Mb RAM, 14"
monitor, boxed with manuals,
software and printer. £175 o.n.o.
buyer collects. Tel: 01480 476371
(St Neots, Cambs) A Hynes
• A4000 with monitor, keyboard,
mouse, trackerball and
powerpad with the game Burn
Out. £200 o.n.o. Tel: 016973 43518
(Wigton, Cumbria) Alan
Gillespie.
• 2 RPC PC Cards 586 133Mhz
(CJE) £150 each. 15" Monitor
with on-screen menu £50. Tel:
01223 812080 evenings
(Cambridge) Peter Rank
• RPC 600, 20+1 Mb, 210HD,
AKF60 monitor, 2nd slice, 2xCD-
ROM, Publisher, Artworks,
Webster XL, Scan Light 256, Canon
BJ-lOsx printer & more. £750 ono.
Tel: 01744 893392 (St.
Helens/Merseyside)
• A310 RISC OS 3.1, ARM3, 4Mb
RAM, 37Mb DEA HDD,
Pipedream3, Acorn DTP, Leading
Edge joystick adapter, games,
discs, books, manuals, etc. £200.
Tel: 01508 578189 (Norwich)
June 1999 http://www.acornuscr.com
Dave Acton
and Dave
Lawrence
see how
much they
can get
away with
in...
A bit of a bender Author: Mark Adcock
Just when you thought an idea was dead, it's amazing
what you can do to bring it back to life. Mark Adcock
has revamped his Parallax demo from the March issue,
sprinkled some magic pixie dust on it (now, now,
Mark, go easy on that dust), appended the mystical
rune '2' onto the end of the name, and knock me down
with a greasy spatula if it isn't a whole new
submission!
'This is a variation on the old spin-a-sprite-around-
and-zoom-in-and-out theme. It has all the necessary
features for a *info classic - it's a sequel, it has a silly
name and, more importantly, it got to it's current state
by a mix of vaguely clever coding, a few went-wrong-
isms and some experimenting. It also moves around
the screen violently in a very squelchy kind of way,
making you feel ill without any resort to colour
cycling.'
Customisations
speed% - between 10 and 20, but you can go higher if
you want.
high% - If high=l the plotting routine will use 1x2
blocks (slow Rise PC users might want to take the
Inner tube
Author: Mark Adcock
WAIT out) If high=0 2x2 blocks will be used
(Recommended for pre-Risc PC machines)
ds% - If low, the routine will only plot non zero
pixels. These leave some interesting trails behind.
This started out as a fairly normal, non-zooming,
sprite spinning effect. To make it as quick as possible, I
interpolated the x and y positions in the source texture
across the screen. The
zooming was added
by mistake when I used the
wrong offset in my sine
table to get a cosine value
for an angle. I'm sure you
can spot it. To add the
warping effect, I increased
the source texture y
coordinate by fractions of
itself, the y source
coordinate, and a constant.
What fraction of each you
add on depends on a few
sine waves in the mainloop.'
Mark Adcock has obviously been busy staring down
some slimy tubes recently, although quite why that
would inspire Plastun is anyone's guess. Plastun is a
real-time plasma-mapped tunnel. The program works
by mapping a 64x64 plasma field onto a 256x256
portion of the screen in 2 by 2 blocks.
The program generates a table beforehand which
maps every 2x2 block to a source pixel in the plasma
field. Onto this, x and y offsets are added, these change
at the rate determined by the mouse position: Moving
the mouse left and right adjusts the rate of spin,
moving it vertically changes the speed and direction of
progress down the tunnel.
To darken the plasma towards the center of the
screen, the intensity of the plasma is multiplied by the
distance from the center of the screen. The distances are
stored in the mapping table.
A Rise PC-only, 256 fully definable palette mode is
used to make the 2x2 blocks less obvious. The effect
looks even better if you stand back from the screen...
http ://w vvw. a co r n use r. co m
June 1999
Boom bandit
Author: Mark Adcock
At 10km above sea level, sound travels at 300m /s. An object travelling at
this speed is at mach 1, one going 150m/ s is at mach 0.5 and so on. For a
stationary object (mach 0), the waves of sound that it emits can be shown
by drawing a set of concentric circles centred around the object gradually
getting larger. The circles usually represent the peaks of the waves, so for
a constant frequency they should be equally spaced. For a moving object,
the circles bunch up at the front because after the object has emitted one
wave, it moves a little bit, then emits the second.
So, rather than the circles having the same centre, they have
different centres, causing them to bunch up in front of the object and
spread out behind it. If the object is moving at the same speed that the
waves spread out at (mach 1) , then the circles all bunch on top of
each other, causing turbulence and a loud sonic boom, because all
the amplitudes of the waves are added together to create a huge
pressure. At speeds beyond mach 1 the object overtakes it's own sound
waves so it will pass an observer before the noise reaches
them.
This program also shows the doppler effect.
Because the wave peaks are closer together at the front,
the pitch is higher, and at the back it is lower. The noise
is higher as the object approaches you, and then becomes
lower soon after it has passed you. You can hear this
when an ambulance passes you on the street. The
doppler effect occurs with other waves, not just
sound. Doppler shifting in the case of light and other
EM radiation is the main way we can work out how
fast other stars are moving away from us, leading
to the conclusion that the universe started with a big bang and is still
expanding.
Doppler shifting of a star's light is known as ’red shift* because the
wavelengths of light get longer and move towards the red end of the
spectrum.
In the program, The object moving remains fixed in the centre of
the screen and the ground moves right to left along with the
wavefronts. Move the mouse left and right to change the speed
of the object.
Examples
mph
kph
m/s
mach
Car
70
112
31
0.1
Spitfire
352
563
156
0.52
ME262
553
885
245
0.82
Concorde
1559
2494
693
2.31
SR7I Blackbird
2206
3529
981
3.27
All in a lava
Author: Alex Waugh
As promised last month we have Alex
Waugh's LavaLwnp. In terms of realism it
scores very highly. In terms of speed it,
unfortunately, scores very poorly, and those
are Alex's words! It requires 2Mb of VRAM to
achieve its 24-bit gooiness and, unless you
have a StrongARM, will barely creep along.
Run the program and choose what colours to
use, green blobs on a red background is
particularly blobby.
It works by moving the blobs around, with
a slight random influence, and then for each
pixel calculates and sums the intensity from
each blob as if it were a light
source, using the inverse square
law. It then uses this to set the
colour of the pixel. Only one of
the red, green or blue
components of the pixel is
altered, so the background is left
unchanged unless the
background is the same colour as
the blobs.
Alex said he tried using a
lookup table to speed up the
intensity calculations, but
this only seemed to slow it down
(he cannot work out why). We
can't really work it out either -
surely a single table lookup
should be quicker than a division
for each of the points for each of
the pixels on the screen. But as to
exactly how the ins and outs of
the SA cache work who can say. If anyone
knows and would like to modify the source (C
supplied) please let us know.
In the meantime, we have performed a
modicum of open heart surgery and produced
hwalwnpl this is identical in every respect
apart from the fact it only does a quarter of
the resolution and doubles up all the pixels!
Blocky maybe but still quite blobby.
.V June 1999 http://www.acornuser.corn
*info
Cubic blues (and reds, and greens) Author: Jack Peacock
r
If you thought the most colourful cubical
experience to be had was on a rainy afternoon
in Hounslow Bus Station toilets with three
Croatian seamen, think again. For altogether
more wholesome, yet vibrantly colourful
entertainment, peruse these files from Jack
Peacock.
Jack is clearly a well-read student of hue,
and supplies a set of drawfiles that will quite
literally take your understanding of colour
into the third dimensions. ColorCubeA and
ColorCubcB together form the two halves of
an RGB colour cube.
You will need the obligatory pair of Blue
Peter round-ended scissors, non-toxic glue
and quite probably some sticky backed plastic
as well. Oh, and a colour printer of course, of
which these files will provide a mean test (and
be sure to get those flaps nice and sticky or
your final erection may well come adrift
in your hand). 'Each of the six faces has 256
colour mixes which gives, discounting the
repetitions along the twelve edges, the
equivalent of 1352 colour blocks showing on
the net surface of the cube. The remaining
2744 less pure mixes are of course concealed in
the imaginary blocks within the cube, passing
through mid greys in the centre.
'In order to see the cube at
all - let alone print it - you
must have the font Selwyu
immediately available to your
System. Even so, you will not
see the true colours on screen
unless you have a Colour Card
or have a machine with a
minimum 32 thousand colours
available. This is due to the use of
255 values in Text Areas rather
than Red + Green + Blue
percentages in Draw. The reason
for this choice is memory - the
same two drawfiles created in
RGB ' % would raise the cost from
32K uncompressed to 200K
'Note, although the cube faces may appear
strangely limited in colour on earlier
machines, they should still be handled fairly
well by your printer. The exception to this is in
interpreting the lightest values where colours
Th* “S' fop mute be &uec under-
neam ine lA^genvs - Bkx s*de test,
before me asse/r.&y mstmcuon 2
The RGB-CMY Colour Cube
PREPARATION After printing, tin- nsoA-f sfucts should be glued to light weight
card - or even engineer quality cartridge would do. Thi » is prvhabtv best done with a
spray mount type of due Before accurate ly cutting ■ mt the pieces, all dotted Baa should
lx- scored with a stilus or the reverse (wrong! edge if a scalpel blade The pieces
should next be cut along all solid lines using a sharp knife and metal rule, and should
then be fdded along the scored lines and flattened out again before starting the
assembly ASSEMBLY 1) Using a tton-
irnjkici glue <a Prist or Tipp-lix or similar glue
stick is adequate!, attach the mo extra flaps as
directed in ColorCubcB
1) Apply glue to flap " A" aid carefully join
the two unions of the cut *• together along
the Rod - Magenta edge It is important
that this join is accurate 3) Aftply due to
flaps **B" and **C*\ and join tfu Blue to
Magenta edges together and the Red to
Yellow alecs toother 4) Sliding tfu
assembly in er the corner ef a taNc *» ill case
the application of glue to flaps **1)“ ami
“E". and the cube can Ire folded *md joint'd
appropriate! \ This leas es the sixth flapless
side to be joined to the three remaining fkqrs
“F*\ * 4 <r and •*H*\ 5) Complete triangle
**T' as dirtcteil in ColorCubcB
61 Again the comer ef a table aids the
implication if glue to the last three flaps.
7) Btfore joining the last side, drop the
triangle inside the cube, allow ing the thread
to exit our the White comer K) Do not
fold the flaps eonpletely inwards, but allow
the pressure from the last side to d*r this for
you as you fold and join it
The cube can now' be properly suspended
w ith sehitc at the top and block lit the bottom
mmmMMMMMMM
■■■■■■■■■■■a mum*i ■ m m m «■■■■■■■
■■■■■■■■■■HHfSS §11 : $■■■■■
• ■ itinmnni
■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ ■■EKHOHHH
Glue the ~A " flap from ColorCubeB
under the Red - Magenta edge .
7
approach white. The values have therefore
been doctored slightly to give smoother
gradation in print, particularly noticeable
in the increased amount of yellow in
order to compensate for this
pigment's notorious weakness in
paint or ink mixes.
'If you wish, the 255 combination values
can be extracted from the files by highlighting
each of the six faces individually, and saving
each as a Text Area. To convert the 255 values
to RGBs you can use in Draw, divide them by
255 and multiply by 100. For instance '203 0
187' is 79.6' ’> Red, O' < Green, and 73.3% Blue,
which makes a fair purple.'
Jack has supplied a lot more information
on matters of colour and hue in the form of
three more drawfiles which you will find on
the cover disc. In particular, Jack explores the
subject from the perspective of the Art and
Design scholar, rather than that of the
physicist, and argues the case for those who
wish to dispel the ’myth’ of the Three Primary
Pigment Theory.
Jack explores the history of 'primary'
pigments, from the initial ideas of Titian,
through Le Blon's three colour lithographic
separations, and onto nineteenth and
twentieth century theories where colour
models based on five and even six 'base'
colours emerged. All invaluable material for
those who know their anilines from their
elbows.
http://www.acornuser.com June 1999
NEW! X NEW!
J
Wi?
Switch
Boxes
Sha/e keyboard, mouse etc
between RiscPC and PC
Complete with all cables, adaptors etc. Add PS2Mouso
to use a switched PS/2 mouse with an Acorn machine
Keyboard (AT or PS/2). PS/2 mouse and Serial £39.95
(Ideal if your monitor has 2 inputs available)
Keyboard + Monitor (twisted pair VDU cables) £39.95
Keyboard. Monitor, Serial (eg serial mouso) £49.95
Keyboard. Monitor. PS/2 mouse £49.95
15HDto5xBNC cablo for 2-input monitors £19 95
15HD m-m tw pair (as supplied with switches) £14.95
Many other switches, cables and adaptors avallablel
NEW!
V
Trackball
An ergonomic trackball
which plugs directly into
your Acornl
Features ergonomic shape with 3 buttons.
Heavy ball may be easily removed for
cleaning. Switch allows reconfiguration of
Select / Menu position.
Trackball £34.95
Touchpad
/ v "A pleasure to use"
/ Neal Philips, AU, Xmas 1998
Use directly on A7000. or via PS2Mouse/
PS2Mouse+ on other machines £34.95
or purchased with PS2Mouse/t £29.95
PS2Mouse
... allows you to use any PS/2
device wifh your Acorn only £24.95
PS2Mouse+ with a port for Acorn mouse
Ideal for touchpad or trackballs £39.95
<«J x >jm
Not quite everything we do is new!
These are just some examples of our wide
range of Game, Interface and SEN Access
products.
If you would like further information, please
see our website, telephone or write to ask
for our full product information flyer.
Please note ourJJUJJJ telephone
number!
PO Box 183, OLDHAM OL2 8FB
Email: lnfo@STDevel.demon.co.uk
www: http i/Twww.stdevel demon.co.uk
Tel: 01 706 848 600 (9am - 9pm)
Orange: 0976 255 256 dFAX 0870 1 64 1 604
Ail pnces include P&P. Ail trademarks acknowleged E&OE.
Acce ss/Vi sa' De I ta ; Mas t e rcard accepted.
PC Cards Again! rci
We can now offer from stock Acorn ACA 57 Aieph one Limited
PC Cards with Cyrix/IBM 5x86 processors at 100 MHz.
With this Card you can run Windows (and DOS) appli-
cations under Windows 3.1 or 95 or 98. You can use PC
CD ROMs and, with an Ethernet Card and our Network
Links software, your Rise PC can act like any other PC on
a PC network. The PCPro software now supports for the
games-writers' favourite VESA2 & DirectX standards.
Prices include VAT & UK postage:
ACA57 PC Card with no software £295
ACA57 Card with PCPro3 Software for new users £345
ACA57 Card + PCPro3 if you return PCPro2 disc £310
The following prices apply if ordered at the same time:
Windows 95 on CD ROM £65
PCSound Professional (sound support by RCI) £35
IBM PC DOS v7 (not required for Windows) £10
Network Links Software for one user £20
Our Web page on Benchmarks shows the tiny effect of a
larger cache or a 133MHz processor; the processor we
offer here has a heat sink fitted and does not need a fan
DirectX/VESA support does not generally benefit from
more than 128Kb cache anyway.
Aieph One Limited
The Old Courthouse, Bottisham, CAMRIDGE CB5 9BA
Tel: 01 223 811 679 Fax: 01 223 812 713
www.aleph1.co.uk/AcornProd/Software/PCPro3Demo/index.html
Monitors
Iiyama 15" 350
Iiyama 17" (S702GT) ,28dot
Iiyama 17" 400 Pro .25 dot
CTX 14" Digital Scan
CTX 15" Digital Scan
CTX 17”.28 70Khz Digital
CTX mons have (3 year on-site vvarrty)
Many other models available
£145.00
£279.00
£359.00
£125.00
£145.00
£259.00
Switch Boxes
Parallel 2 way (25w 'D' skts) £ 1 6.99
Parallel 4 way (25w 'D' skts) £ 1 9.99
Serial 2 way (9w 'D' skts) £ 19.99
Monitor+Keyboard 2 way £19.99
Suitable cables and other boxes
available, please ask
c
VGA to PAL
TV Converter
The VGA Converter
allows the output of any Acorn running
in a VGA or SVGA mode (or PC comp)
to be displayed on a TV or recorded
onto a video recorder. Please ask for
more information.
Price £159.00 inc vat
Colour
Printers
Epson Sty lus Colour 440 £ 1 25.00
Epson Stylus Colour 640 £ 1 59.00
Epson Stylus Colour 850 £279.00
HP Laserjet 1 100 (laser mono) £289.00
ViFus
Protection
Pineapples Virus Protection
Scheme has been running for
over six years and is stilf
being updated with new
viruses on a regular basis.
New software versions are
sent out to members every four months
and the total number of viruses which
can be removed is well over 200. The
latest version is now scanning at up to
four times faster than previous versions
despite coping with many more viruses.
Joining fee just £28.20
'If you 're interested in virus protection ,
join the Pineapple Virus Protection
scheme and buy Killer. Accept no
alternative - ' Acorn User Feb 96
Inexpensive multi-user licences
Parallel to
— SCSI adapter
A brand new product from Pineapple providing
an inexpensive alternative to a SCSI card when
using SCSI scanners. The SCSI adapter plugs into
the parallel port (with a 'through' printer
connector), and can be used directly with SCSI
scanners. Works with A30 10/3020/4000/5000/
A7000/RiscPC (inc StrongARM).
Price just £59.00 inc vat
Colour Scanners
The new Epson GT7000 is great
value and the Photo version with
transparency adapter gives excellent quality on
both transparencies and negatives. Our new SCSI
parallel port adapter cable makes this excellent
scanner very affordable. The Plustek 12000P
parallel port scanner also gives excellent quality at
the cheapest possible price. All scanner prices
include Imagemaster and Twain software.
Epson GT7000 - SCSI £259.00
Epson GT7000 Photo - SCSI £299.00
Epson Filmscan 200 - SCSI £435.00
Canon Canoscan 2700F - SCSI £557.00
Plustek 12000P- Parallel Port £149.00
Pineapple Software
352 Green Lane, ILFORD
Essex IG3 9JS
Tel 0181 599 1476 Fax 0181 598 2343
email:- sales@pineaple.demon.co.uk
www:- http://www.pineaple.demon.eo.uk
Terms:- All prices include
17.5% vat. Carriage £5 on most
hardware. Small items £3 (or
less). Phone for quote outside
UK. Official orders, cheques
and all major credit cards
accepted at no extra charge.
$tudio24Pro
'Many Acorn User front covers have been
created from scratch using this program alone,
concrete proof of the power of this creative
jfi m • tool’- Acorn User Mar96
f y Now just ★ £99.00 ★
%/S/ v Users note FREE update v2. 16 is now available.
As if your fun was not complete, here is a veritable compendium of games
in a single, modest Basic program. Matthew Wilson is the programmer behind PingPong
not so much a bat-and-ball game as, well, 27 bat-and-ball games.
'PingPong is a small Basic file with a graphically prehistoric, but surprisingly addictive
2 player ball game. No, not the 'keep the ball from going off the screen' Pong type thing.
It's more like tennis, in as much as tennis can be played by floaty triangles - basically
keep the ball(s) off your side by walloping them with your bat onto the other side. There
are loads of game parameters that can be tweaked, and a menu of 'pre-tweaked' games
to choose from too/
It is these pre-tweaked variants that provided us with much delight in the *info office -
they have wonderfully descriptive names. Who could resist a quick session of zooni-
about-low-net fatty-whack?
Headache , on the other hand, is a 'colour cycling zooming diverging random mess'. It is
well named and probably fortunate that there is only one of them.
Rays your glasses Author: Jack Peacock
...and toast what will surely be the last
Basic ray-tracing program to grace these
hallowed pages. Tom Thorne is the
force behind it and he supplies two
versions - a plain phong shaded one
(three snooker balls in a coal shed) and
a bump mapped one (three golf balls in
a coal shed, assorted colours).
As we look back over the last 100 *infos,
Ivor bold one
(and a medium one)
Author: Ivor Clarke
If you enjoyed Ivor Clarke's fonts on the January'
1999 cover disc, you will be appreciative of this
update. Ivor has been gently tweaking with his
earlier creation and has also added the dreaded
Euro symbol too. (As it happens, we at the *info
office have just acquired new machines complete
with Euros on the 4 key and I still regularly
mistake these tor ants.)
Add Ivor's fonts to your regular '.Fonts
directory as per the instructions in the January'
issue. Both the eponymous Ivor (which comes in
bold, medium and light flavours) and Technical
have received a makeover.
it staggers us to think of what a load of
balls (of one sort or another) have been
on show - some merely static, illuminated
by some hazy, virtual light - others
bouncing around like there's no
tomorrow. Tom's are some of the finest
yet seen though, and he gives us some
information on how to get the most out
of them.
'Altering xres and yres changes the
resolution of the image produced. The
raytracer works by giving the viewers eye
and the screen coordinates in 3D space.
For each pixel to be coloured on the screen,
the program tests to see if a ray fired
from the viewers eye through the
corresponding point on the virtual
screen would intersect with a sphere. If so
then the phong illumination model is
used to see how close to a light source
another ray reflected from the surface
would be, to choose an appropriate colour
for the sphere.
'The distance to intersection is calculated
using the vector of the ray, the coordinates of
the sphere and the coordinates of the eye,
solving a quadratic equation (too big to write
down). If the ray does not intersect the
equation will be unsolvable, otherwise it will
give two distances along the ray (hitting the
front and back of the sphere).
'The quadratic equation can be found as
follows. When a point in 3D space (x,y,z) is on
the surface of a sphere at (a,b,c) of radius r,
then:
(x-a) *2+(y-b) A 2+(z-c) A 2=r A 2
'A point (x,y,z) of distance t along a ray of
vector (vx,vy,vz) from an origin (ex,ey,ez) is:
x=ex+t*vx
y=ey+t*vy
z=ez+t*vz
'Substituting these into the equation for a
point on the surface of a sphere allows you
create a quadratic equation which can be
solved to find t, the distance along the ray
where x,y and z will be on the surface of a
sphere.'
Finished
Press SPr.CE or click nouse to continue
Water way to go
Author: Mark Adcock
Move the mouse left and right to change wind
direction, up and down to change number of rain
drops (to suit the speed of your machine). Mark
Adcock originally sent Rain ages ago and it was
scheduled for the September 1997 issue, hut
somehow it never made it into the magazine.
Anywho, here it is 21 months late.
http://www.acornuser.com June 1999
David Barrow way back in the August 1994
Acorn User , you'll be in Norway disappointed
with this desktop Euroversion.
'Spotlight on Europe is a quiz testing the
user's knowledge of countries and
geographical features of the continent of
Europe. Features are highlighted on a map of
Europe and the user
must identify them,
selecting an answer
from a choice of six.
'Any combination of
the eight categories can
be attempted together:
countries, capitals,
cities, rivers, islands.
peaks, inland features and sea/ coastal
features. The aim is to give as many correct
answers as possible in two minutes [not
wanting to Russia or anything].
'To begin a new game, either click Select
on the iconbar icon or choose the 'New
game...' option from the iconbar menu. The
computer will choose a random category out
of the ones selected in this window for each
question.
'Click on the button at the bottom of the
window to start the game. You will see the
first geographical feature to be identified
highlighted on the map of Europe, and a list of
six answers to choose from. Click an answer
or type in it's number.
'You must select the
correct answer before
you can continue with the
next question. When your
two minutes are up,
you will be told your score
and asked to enter your name
for the score table [if you
have done well enough not
Toulouse]'
If you are Hungary
for more, Jonathan has
many plans for future
enhancements, including
extending the map
eastwards to encompass
Elbrus, Europe's highest
mountain. (And watch out
for next month's issue
when we shall seamlessly
weave Dnepropetrovsk
into a cunning
pun).
If you fancy czeching out your knowledge of
things European, Denmark this page in your
favourite magazine. Here you will find details
of the splendid Euroquiz SLoEurope {'Spotlight
on Europe') from the equally splendid
Jonathan Rawle. If you remember the original
program Spotlight on Britain (or SLOB!) by J
Test your bwioledge of Europe
Damp quids
Author: David Llewellyn-Jones
DeskDmnp is a tiny tiny tiny program from
David Llewellyn-Jones. It unleashes a
fountain of dampness (if such a thing is
possible) onto the unsuspecting desktop. The
flow starts from the top, in the centre of the
screen, and descends downwards until it hits a
window or other object, at which point it will
attempt to flow around it. By arranging the
windows appropriately before you run the
program (it isn't multi-tasking) it becomes
possible to produce a pleasant 'mountain
cascade' effect.
As far as I know the program will only
work in 256 colour modes on a Rise PC,
but it shouldn't matter what size/ resolution
the screen is set at.
The program works by using a simple
particle algorithm: each droplet will move
downwards until it hits something, at
which point it will attempt to move either left
or right (choosing randomly if both are
possible). If it cannot do any of these it will
then attempt to move upwards. The program
doesn't do this quite properly in order toallow
it to fit into 256 bytes, but it's effective enough.
Windows are detected using simple colour
testing: if it's darker than the standard
backdrop (colour 48) then it's considered to be
a foreground object. If therefore you find that
your windows are too clumsy to create the
precise effect you want, it's possible to draw a
landscape on a sprite and place this on your
backdrop.
An example backdrop is included which
produces quite a pleasing effect. Unfortunately
neither SLO Europe nor DeskDmnp are on this
cover disc. They will however be on next
months along with more *info programs.
*Quit J
All submissions bendy
or shaky welcome.
*INFO, Acorn User, Tan Press,
Media House, Adlington Park,
Macclesfield SK10 4NP
or, e-mail us (including your
real address please) at:
starinfo@acornuser.com
No e-mails longer than 100K
please. Screenshots, background
info and customisation ideas are
always most welcome. Please put
your name, address and program
title on every disc and include a
text file containing your name,
address, disc contents and program
details. An SAE will ensure your
discs are returned.
LV |une 1999 http://wwvv.acornuser.com
Trackerball 60mm Heavy ball, Acorn or PC versions, half price! £ 75
56K (V90) Modem £ 80
32 Speed IDE CD ROM Drive with DAX £ 60
CD ReWriter IDE with S/W from £ 275
CD ReWriter SCSI Yamaha 4416 with S/W (needs SCSI interface) £ 345
Acorn C++ HALF PRICE £ 125
RiscOS PRM's Voll-4 HALF PRICE £ 55
Acorn SCSI Interface for A3 10, A5000 etc Ideal for CD or Scanner £ 80
CD ROM Drive Unit for A310/A5000 etc (Acorn MEU) needs scsi interface £ 115
CD ROM Drive unit as above with Acorn SCSI Card £ 175
Spacetech PDSView less than half price (Site Licence 66% off!) Single user £ 47
Olympus 420L 2mb, 640x480 & Acorn software £ 305
Olympus 1400XL4mb, 1280x1024, power zoom & Acorn software £ 850
VTI Sound Sampler £ 47 / Acorn RiscPC 16 bit sound card £ 52
NEW Product 250MB Zip Drive SCSI Ext. £ 195, Printer Port version with S/W £ 225
RiscPC backplane £5 off, now £ 30 / A7000 Backplane £10 off, now £ 30
8.4GB IDE IBM/Quantum Fireball Hard Disc £ 200
Acorn Access+ interfaces A5000 l0b2&T, A3000 i0b2&T, A3020/4000 10b2 or RiscPC i0b2&T£ 105
Epson Film Scan 200 with S/W new price £ 375
High Res Plustek OpticPro 1200x600 optically with Acorn S/W NOW £ 150
Epson Scanner GT7000 SCSI 1200x600 with S/W £ 275 inc Film adaptor £ 350
PC Card 5x86 133MHz 512k Cache £ 300
New RiscPC Systems Some still in stock as at 21.4.99 phone for price & specification
DRAM simms for RiscPC’s 32MB £ 60, 64MB £ 105 & 128MB £ 250
Acorn Advance Wordprocessor, Spreadsheet, Database & Graphs £ 58
Second Hand RiscPC's
Phone for spec. & Pricing!
A7000+'s Now From Stock
Internet, Foundation & Extreme Options
StrongARM
Upgrades
Now available again.
£290
RiscOS 4 £ 120
Fitting Service
£25 or £15 with New Hard Drive
Courier collection & return also available.
CJE Micro's
78 Brighton Road
Worthing
West Sussex
BN11 2EN
http://www.cje.co.uk
All prices INCLUDE VAT @1 7.5%
& Delivery. Official Orders Welcome E&OE
Prices subject to change & stock.
CJE4DV27 Tel 01 903 523222 Fax 01903 523679 sales@cje.co.uk
Games Newly StrongARM Compatible
Saloon Cars Deluxe £30 Holed Out Comp. £25 Chocks Away Comp. £25
Upgrades available from £ 6
Other StrongARM Compatible titles
Anagram Genius (£20), Cataclysm (£20), Chopper Force (£30), Cyber Chess (£35).
Demon's Lair (£20), Drifter (£35), Groundhog (£12), Logic Mania (£30),
Pandora's Box (£25), StuntRacer 2000 (£25 *NEW PRICE*), WimpGame (£20)
Other titles being worked on
The Fourth Dimension,
78 Brighton Road,
Worthing. West Sussex
BN11 2EN
Tel: 01903 213361
Fax: 01 903 523679
Email: 4d@cje.co.uk
Web: www.cje.co.uk/4d/
Prices and specifications are correci
at the time of going to press. All price
are fully inclusive. E&OE.
Issue 206 - April 1999
• !OHP uncovered
• Acorn Confidence Part 1
• ISleuth 3 Review
• Java and !Impact-3 continued
Issue 205 - March 1999
• Web Wizard
• Using Impact-3
• Ovation Pro Tutorial
• Java Programming
Issue 204 - February 1999
• Evolution demo CD
• Evolution Competition
• Site Seer review
• Using Ovation Pro macros
Issue 207 - May 1999
• !ProCAD+
• Heretic & Hexen
• Acorn Confidence Part II
• Fishy Disk
Missed out on one of our previous issues?
Now's your opportunity to bring your collection
up to date. But hurry - stocks are limited
Issue 203 - January 1999
• Rhapsody 4
• AddressIT
• Speakers reviewed
• Film Trailer CD
Issue 202 - Christmas. 1998
• Writiflgjaw —
# ^
• ^5^5^ rrRTng^
• Wimpvvorks vs Wimpbasic
Issue 201 - Decenilier 1998
• T^DianftF7Xccoiints 4
• Sunburst review
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Name on card:
S imon Anthony has come up with a
useful little program which could
prove a real boon for those who use
the My World suite of programs. Called
NeivSnver, this lets you save your work from
any application and on any RISC OS machine.
But in particular it adds new saving facilities
to MyWorld providing a new, simpler, intuitive
and familiar way of saving.
NewSnver has two main modes of
operation. The first mode can also be used in
two ways - either via a large window (which
looks like a normal MyWorld popup window)
or via a much smaller window which holds
the user's name. This second mode uses the
single application directory called All Work
for easy access and is automatically created
the first time NewSnver is run. A neat and
time-saving program. To find out more contact
ECS on 0115 9799684.
Suite vs standalone
We've been contacted by a fourth year
teaching student from Bishop Grosseteste
Teacher Training College. Claire is researching
the use of 1CT in classrooms especially
focusing on the use of computers within
english and music. What she needs is teachers'
opinions on the use of computer suites versus
one computer per classroom. If you have
Saving the
Pam Turnbull
shows us who's
normal saving menu from any MyWorld 2
screen. Both modes can be used together.
Files are then stored in directories named
after the people who use them, or after the
general nature of the items stored inside. This
named directory, the 'Current User' directory,
is accessible at all times and can be used on a
standalone hard disc, floppy or network
machine.
Each newly created directory has three
sections within it which are not normally
visible to the user all at once; a Work Done
section for finished work, a To Finish section
for work in progress and a To Print section
which is best suited for use with MyWorld!.
Each save directory application is stored in a
experience you'd like to share with Claire then
please drop her a line via Acorn User and we'll
pass your comments on.
On-line
Reporting on BE IT earlier in the year I
mentioned Galaxy Kids which has just gone
live in the UK on Freeserve. The producers of
Galaxy Kids, Sunshine Multimedia (UK) Ltd,
today launched a subscription magazine
which uses the Internet to deliver a complete
learning package for children aged 3 to 7
directly into UK homes.
Promising the equivalent of a 52 week
part-work, Galaxy Kids allows children to
play with the specially written interactive
material live on the Internet, and also
download a 'living book' and activity sheets to
keep. Each weekly instalment includes over
three hours of fun learning activities featuring
animation, voice-overs, sound, stories, music
and other activities which parents and
children can enjoy whenever they want. The
activities are designed to develop early
literacy and numeracy skills using stories,
interactive activities, an animated alphabet,
phonics sections and printable activity sheets,
as well as parents' guidance notes. The
programme has been designed to meet the
specific needs of the UK market, in line with
current educational initiatives, such as
Literacy Hour and school/parent
partnerships.
Galaxy Kids is set aboard an alien space
station in orbit around the Earth. Children
follow two characters, Zolar and Zina, who
have been sent on a homework mission to
learn all about planet Earth. The home page
displays three parts of the 'space station' - the
Story Room, the Club Room and the Parents'
Room.
Visitors to the Story Room will discover
52 interesting and enjoyable stories that
increase gently in difficulty month by month.
The Club Room offers a wide range of
frequently updated learning activities,
including nursery rhymes and extended help
with learning the alphabet. Here children will
also find the writing section which is designed
to help them understand how stories are
written, how stories should be read, and offers
help with selecting words to create new
sentences.
Meanwhile, the Parents' Room explains
how to get the most out of Galaxy Kids, it
includes a questions and answer service on
early reading, links to other useful Websites
for parents and a place where parents can
download stories and activities
University of Exeter's Professor Ted Wragg
commented: 'Many parents want to know
how they can best help their children at home,
without cutting across what the school is
trying to achieve, so Galaxy Kids could be an
easily available and regular source of useful
ideas.'
If you want to know more there is a free
tour available on www.freeserve.net - just
click on the Early Learning sections, or go
directly to www.galaxykids.co.uk. If you
decide to commit, the charges work out at
about £2 a week and you can
subscribe monthly or annually.
Gems
If you ever despair about teaching Science to
under 14s, then here are some real quotes from
some recent Science exams:
• 'Water is composed of two gins, Oxygin and
Hydrogin. Oxygin is pure gin. Hydrogin is gin
and water/
• 'When you breathe, you inspire. When you do
not breathe, you expire/
• 'H20 is hot water, and C02 is cold water/ To
collect fumes of sulphur, hold down a deacon
over a flame in a test tube'
• 'Three kinds of blood vessels are arteries,
vanes, and caterpillars/
If these made you smile you can get the full list by
sending me a quick e-mail to educ@acornuser.com
http://www.acornuser.com June 1999 ^
when
Pam
Turnbull
takes a trip
back in
time to see
just what
we've done
with this
millennium
Y
^Choose a Topic
2K fever has not hit us with its full force yet -
but it will. First to cross the finishing line in
the education race is Sherston with This Week
in History. Quite simply this is an historical
CD-ROM full of images, text and clip art covering
events over the last one thousand years.
The program opens to reveal a three-tabbed
presentation providing information by Topic, Calendar
or Index. There are nine topics on offer: Health and
medicine, Battles and warfare, People and society,
Royalty and government, Flight and rockets,
Exploration, Science and technology, Surface transport,
and Communications and media. All tie in nicely to
History at Key Stage 2 and 3 but fall down on the
general interest.
You can choose a topic which fits with your theme,
or browse at random. Whichever option, the topic
headings open to reveal a chronology of people and
events. For instance, Science and technology starts with
Copernicus in 1473 and ends with the Thames Barrier
in 1984, while Exploration begins with Columbus in
1492 and stops at 1911 with the South Pole. I was
somewhat disappointed not to see Cabot in this list
though. This is not a definitive list of every famous
person or event, rather a taster which should send
children off on more in-depth
research.
The lists are also
eurocentric, which is to be
expected considering how
we're counting the
millennium, other cultures
having passed their second
millennium some time ago!
So what are the resources
on offer? Should we decide to
look at the Battle of Hastings
in 1066 in the Battles and warfare section, we'll find
where this event sits on the timeline, a plan of the
battle, maps, information on weapons and images from
the Bayeux Tapestry and some introductory text. This
text is scrollable and gives the bare bones of the events
leading up to the incident as well as the event itself.
Another two tabbed sections have also appeared:
Clip art and Events. The latter takes you back to the list
of Topic chapters, while the clip art consists of the
images and text in the main section ready to be saved
out as draw and textfiles.
The earliest event is 1066, with William I and the
Battle of Hastings getting two entries, while the latest
takes us to 15 October 1997 and the Thrust SSC
breaking the sound barrier. I found the health and
medicine section stopping in 1929 with the discovery of
Penicillin a little odd, but the problem with this sort of
package is choosing what to put in, and you're never
going to please everyone. Even so there's not a mention
of DNA.
Click on the Calendar tab and you find yourself in
the What happened this week? section. This
automatically opens on the current week with
notification of an event and the date. So, the first week
in July shows you that the 1 July in 1916 was the First
day of the Somme, while on 3 July in 1938 the land
speed record was broken.
As you'd expect, clicking on these entries takes you
to the event file with its associated text, images and
timeline. You can change the month and week
hat happened this week?
m Twig
\fUL
» • * * * * * •
1 2 3
<1
5 6 7 8 9 10
11
12 13 14 15 16 17
18
19 20 21 22 23 24
26 27 28 29 30 31
25
i — -j
1 I
Vfflxn.m* Mr* f4 Ifc* War
♦01/17.1*1* Sprrrf m-nrH hr.4,o
whenever you want, and there are between 1 and 4
events recorded for each week in the year - October
being a particularly busy month. Some are of world
renown while others are somewhat smaller in
importance, but have still impacted on our daily lives
perhaps more than we'd like to think.
If you're looking for something specific your best
port of call is the Index. Arranged into nine
alphabetical groups you can jump straight to a part of
the alphabet or scroll through an entry at a time. Click
on something that intrigues you and again you find
yourself at the relevant topic page which can be
printed out.
There is no search option, but you can manage
without one. However, 1 would have liked the facility
to add your own events and dates to the calendar.
Rather than a red blob denoting further information
and a link to the Topic section, a blue square could
easily have told people it was an event added by users.
A nice idea but unfortunately the potential has
not been fully realised.
Product details
Product:
Price:
Ages:
Supplier:
Tel:
Web:
This Week in History
£40
9-14
Sherston Software
016666 843 200
www.sherston.co
June 1999 http://www.acornuser.com
ducatior
Science at
your fingertips
Pam Turnbull
looks at the first
in the long-
awaited Explorer
series
T he Explorer series, developed by ILP
for YITM, has been a long time
coming. Time has passed and though
the PC version has been out for three
years, the Acorn version has only just made it
to the shelves. The company itself is now part
of Granada Learning; and with the news that
Granada (comprising SEMERC and YITM) is
steering away from their total commitment to
the RISC OS platform was it worth the wait?
Taking the concept of a museum, Science
Explorer presents you with five subject-specific
galleries: Living Things; The Human Being;
The Material World; Electricity, Light and
Sound; Forces and Motion; and Space. As you
manoeuvre around each gallery you'll come
across displays, clicking on which reveal
information and activities.
There are exhibits in each gallery from
What species is that? to The Moon. Some of
these are categorised as Fact Points with
snippets of information, while clicking others
such as a bicycle or hunting eagle open up to
give Learn About screens which are written
and narrated slideshows, well illustrated by
drawings and photographs. If you want more
information than this brief overview, there's
the Tell Me More button at the bottom of the
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Learn About screen. This reveals more
information and graphics putting more meat
on to the skeletal concepts.
Alternatively you can click on Experiment,
of which there are 25 in total. Each one is
nicely presented and explained as you access
it, though I did find that children didn't
always find these totally intuitive to use.
Finally there is the option to Test Yourself,
which provides five multiple choice questions
(at two levels of
difficulty) to see if
you've been paying
attention.
Now you could
start your virtual
tour in the material
world gallery and
click on an
attractive display of
snowflakes. This
opens to present
you with information on how important water
is in words, pictures and text in its Learn
About section. Unusual or scientific words are
highlighted and can be clicked on for further
explanation - water is usually a liquid, for
instance.
A click on the Tell me More button
provides information on cloud formation,
while the associated experiment is all to do
with filling a bath by controlling the flow from
the tap and the effect of the plug.
You can stroll around at random, but you
can also access the index which lets you
specify your interest and decide if you want
pure information, or do-it-yourself
experiments. 1 also like the way that you can
create your own notebook folder of pictures,
text, and your own notes
including sound. This could be a
useful aide for project work or be
used as a presentation device -
although it isn't ideal for that
purpose. A sixth gallery contains a
quiz that can be set up for
children to play on their own or
against others.
The experiments are interesting
and mostly well chosen, however
some do tend towards the pretty
interactive illustration variety. In
the Earth section you can play
with Newton's Orbit. However,
i Page 2 of 3 Hfr*
who Newton was, what else he did, and the
impact he had on the scientific and
mathematical communities and society in
general is left to the teacher. Instead children
have to type in a number for the launch speed
of a satellite leaving Earth. There is no
guidance whatsoever on the speeds required,
or why speed is important and so on. The
children loved it, but as an experiment it
makes a better reinforcement or consolidation
exercise. The subjects
covered mirror the
requirements of Key
Stage 2 - although when
I was using it with a
Year 6 class on Space it
didn't quite give the
level of detail some of
my Level 5 children
craved.
You'll either love or
hate the virtual gallery
idea. I found that teachers had more problems
than children when it came to the navigation -
nothing new there! Navigation becomes easier
with practice, but personally I'd avoid the
virtual tour interface - at times it’s slow and
you find yourself going around in circles even
if you're used to this style of navigation - and
stick to the catalogue. Information can be
accessed much more quickly and succinctly
via the catalogue. Additional help is also
provided by the Log Book which records
where children have been (and their test
scores), built-in guidebook and map for quick
access to a gallery.
Children react well to Science Explorer, the
graphics are varied from the fun to the
informative, there is never too much text on
screen and the information is relevant to what
children are expected to know at this Key
Stage. It does lack depth in places, but this is
not a virtual teacher only a teaching tool.
Despite a few niggles, it's a must
have CD-ROM.
Product details J
Product: Science Explorer
Price: £34.99
Ages: 8-12
Supplier: Granada Learning
Tel: 0161-827 2927
Web: www.granada-learning.co
http ://www.acomuser. com June 1999
i
THE DATA STORE
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OJ's,
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Software...
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T his all started some time ago when
Alec brought an electric organ home
from school. They don't want it' he
said, 'can we use it for parts?' Now
modern keyboards are reasonably sized, but
this one resembled a small sideboard. What
he really wanted was the bass pedals, he
wanted some sort of drone generator to
accompany his electric guitar playing. The
idea was that by pressing a pedal he could
produce a note that would last until he
started another one.
Well that concept had to be refined a bit
as you could then never turn anything off, so
we came up with the idea that pressing the
same pedal as the sounding note would
turn it off. Finally, as what was being
constructed here is really a musical
instrument, I had to devise something to
change the timbre of the note. The idea is that
these pedals can output MIDI data, and a
sound module or computer could actually
generate the sound.
This is an ideal project to implement with
a PIC chip, in fact you might struggle making
it any other way.
Well, the bass pedals were removed from
the old instrument, and one or two other bits
and pieces saved for a rainy day, the rest was
sent to the scrap heap. If you haven't got
access to scrap like this then bass pedals can
be purchased separately. The pedals activated
simple spring switches and there were
thirteen all together, covering just over one
octave. Now the main problem with the
16C84 is getting all those switches into the
chip, there are not enough inputs to wire
them straight in so I had to resort to some
additional logic.
The circuit is shown in figure I and uses
two shift registers as input expanders, with
the PIC controlling the load and clock lines.
.Bass
drone
Steptoe and Son (Mike Cook and
Alec) produce a drone generator
for an electrical guitar.
One of the I / O pins is used to generate the
MIDI output data stream, and the large drive
capacity of the B Port is used to directly drive
a seven segment display. The idea was that
the display could show you the note being
played, with the dot on the display indicating
if that note was a sharp. With a bit of
imagination, and judicious use of lower case
letters, you could get it to display all the
notes.
There is also an extra program switch but
that is not necessary for the basic circuit, only
if you want to expand the system. There are
13 switches on bass pedal so they fit onto the
first 13 inputs of the shift register, this left
three inputs free. I wired one of them up
to a separate non-latching foot switch to
allow the voice to be changed, and the other
two are spares, see later for ideas on using
them.
I built the whole thing in a wooden box,
along with a 5 volt regulator so that it could
be run off the supply Alec uses for his other
effects pedals. The seven segment display I
used was reasonably large having 8mm long
segments, you could even use a bigger one if
http://vvww.acornuser.com June 1 999
MIDI BASS PEDDLES
Fig 1: Boss Peddle Circuit
you want as the PIC will supply up to 25mA on each
Port B pin. Now I wanted to paint it black in true rock
and role style but Alec preferred the wood finish, 'it's
cooP he said.
So, armed with the hardware I set about
designing the PIC software. The MIDI output is
similar to the serial output routines I have used in the
past, but the timing is a little different this time
because I have used an 8MHz crystal (I happened to
have one handy). If you want to use a normal 10MHz
one then you will have to tweak the delay loops a
little.
The main program is relatively simple, it waits in a
loop, continuously scanning in the shift register until
it detects a key press. It then looks to see if it is a
spare input pin and if not converts the input number
into a MIDI note value. This is done by simply adding
24. Then, if a note is already playing it is turned off
and the new note turned on, but only if it is different
from the last note.
There is an option in the voice setup data to
hold a note on in a drone or just let it sound for the
duration of the key press. The routine that turns the
note on also displays the note on the seven segment
display, this is achieved by using a look up table to
convert the note number into the bit pattern to drive
the display.
Now if the 13th key is pressed this indicates that
we want to change the voice or sound. The display
then shows a small letter c (for change) but to
differentiate it from the note C it is displayed on the
top half of the display and underlined. Then pressing
a normal key will set the instrument to a new voice.
There are 13 voices pre-programmed into the
instrument and held in the EPROM data section of the
PIC.
This is a section of the PIC that I haven't used
before in any of my projects and it needs a bit of
messing about to access it, you are best looking at the
code to see what it does. There are two data entries
for each voice, a program number followed by a bank
number. This is for the MIDI XG system which
allows more than the normal number of voices, the
bank number should be ignored by normal General
MIDI. Alec chose those voices that he thought best
suited a droning bass line. Also the most significant
bit of the bank number is set if you want the drone
function to be on.
This is done by adding a constant H set to a value
of 128. In this way you can clearly see the bank
number and your choice of drone. The data is at the
end of the program and from the 'OR' address it will
be placed in the data area.
Well that's all there is to it, apart from the usual
extension ideas that you can use to make the project
your own. There are two extra shift register switches
and an extra direct input. I thought you could use one
of those switches to indicate you want to change the
effects added to the note. The XG module allows you
to add in sound processing for both notes and audio
inputs, the effects include echo, reverberation and
pitch shifting. Finally you could use the optional
program push button to initiate a voice programming
sequence. This could allow you to enter the voice data
parameters and store it in EPROM data memory to
enable you to conveniently change the range of
sounds it makes.
Well there you have it, a novel instrument made
from a simple handful of chips and a bit of scrap.
Having made it, I did see one for sale second
hand in a music shop, they wanted £160 for it.
+5 V~
3K3
To shift register
A Foot Switch
W
June 1999 http://www.acornuser.com
Fig II: Put pull up resistors on nil inputs
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Rise OS 3.1 Upgrade Chips £30.00a
RiscTV (Irlam) £295.00c
Teletext module for above £45.00a
SCSI 1 1 6bit (Cumana) £99.00c
SCSI 2 32bit (Cumana) £1 75.00c
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TV Tuner + Teletext £1 59.00c
All Upgrades fitted free if ordered
with Computer else £18.00
CD Writer/ Rewriter
Yamaha CDRW441 6s SCSI £299.00c
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Canon
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£109. 00d
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£299. OOd
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£639. OOd
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A7000+ 16Mb EDO RAM £29.00b
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RiscPC 64Mb RAM £1 29.00c
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Audio Mixer £39. 00b
Movie Magic £279. 00c
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Second Slice no PSU £88.00d
Second Slice with PSU £1 39.00d
Sound Card £34.00b
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Acorn China Mug £4.75a
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Why spend on a PC card when you can
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Example PC:
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Acorn AKF11/12 £99.00d
Acorn AKF17 £119.00d
Acorn AKF30/40 (swivel stand) £1 39. OOd
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monitor cables from £10.00
Other refurbished hardware available
ie: interfaces, drives, PSUs, PCBs Etc:
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full copy of our terms are available upon
request. E.&.O.E 26th March 1999
A Rambles through
Acorn
Mike Cook solves
some antipodean
troubles
i
have been neglecting my Web site
recently, so this month I added all the
1997 Run the RISC articles which include
such delights as a weather satellite
receiver and the PIC micro controller stuff.
Speaking of which, hot on the heels of last
months upgrade to version 1.1 comes version
1.2. This adds an optional window that
displays the extra memory in the 16F84
versions of the chip, it's on the cover disc.
As I have said many times before,
feedback on previous columns is always
welcome, it's a big world out there and I don't
pretend to know all the answers. What makes
the Acorn community great is their
willingness to help out, something you won't
find on other platforms. Therefore I was quite
pleased to see this from John Crane of
Harrogate:
'I was reading the February column
and thought I would pass on some of my
experience regarding the StrongARM
Rise PC. I had similar problems with my
computer, when I purchased it new last
year. Basically my 586 PC card kep
t locking up and crashing. Sometimes on
start up and other times just when you'd
nicely got involved in some intricate PC
software. In the end it was sorted out under
warranty.
'Apparently some StrongARM processors
need retiming slightly, although this should
only be the case for early versions. Mine was
tweaked and it made not the slightest
difference. My PC card still crashed. After
John Wilson wants an upgrade.
7 work in a secondary school which owns several
Acorn :1010s and the question that I have been asked
is, 'Is it possible to add a harddrive to a A3010 and
still keep the MIDI board that's in the expansion slot,
or will I need to recommend getting an external
harddrive, and is this possible?' or is the A3010 not
worth upgrading 1'
There is limited space inside an A30J0, you might
be better going for an internal harddrive and
replacing the MIDI with an external unit, EPS do one
of these. Alternatively talk to SimTech or indeed any
Acorn dealer about fitting an external drive.
I had a conversation with Philip Mellor over the
internet it went something like this:
'Is there an easy way to convert a program
written for the Acorn desktop to Microsoft Visual
Basic? If not, is there a difficult way, or indeed any
way, that doesn't involve rewriting the program in its
entirety in VB? '
Sorry, no. They are totally incompatible in
virtually every way.
'Oh well, that serves the school right for changing
the majority of lessons over to Windows then. On a
totally unrelated subject, I've noticed that on the Rise
Wood
being thoroughly checked out the fault was
found to lie with a Memory SIMM. One chip
on one bank of 32Mb was running slightly
low and bringing the PC card down with it.
A completely new 32Mb SIMM was installed
and it's been fine ever since. Try swapping
the SIMMs from the alternative machine
and also the VRAM (if fitted) and see if that
helps.
'On the BBC to RISC OS topic, this is just
up my street, as I like to carry on using my
old favourites for as long as possible.
'Option 1: 1 have an old Electron with
DFS and ADFS and a 3.5 and 5.25 drive.
What I do is DFS format some 3.5 DD discs.
Copy the 5.25 software onto these and I can
then run them on my Rise PC or A3010 with
6502em by WSS combined with either
ArcDFS (IDFS) by Richard Averill or
ImageDFS by WSS. ArcDFS can even format
DFS discs on your RISC OS machine. If
Richard Fearn, or anyone else for that matter,
wants to write to me about it I can go into
more detail.
'Option 2: In the February issue of Acorn
User on page 66 there is an advert for Multi
Link. This is a serial transfer utility complete
PCs we still have at school you can turn directories
into applications using a hard space (ASCII 160)
instead of a T. Is this a feature of RISC OS 3.5 +, or is
it just a system patch that's been included in the boot
sequence that I don't know about? (I have an A3010
at home and it doesn't work on that.)'
I have RISC OS 3.7 and it doesn't work on that so
I would go with the patch theory, does any reader
know which one it is?
'Also, on my A3010 1 have recently bought a
parallel Zip drive with the Argo driver software. It
works well, but when I try to run many games from a
Zip disc the screen flickers horribly . I have tried all the
usual solutions, such as increasing the screen memory
in the task manager or changing mode before running,
but this doesn't help. The flicker only occurs when I
have the Zip software loaded, so I assume this must be
the cause. Do you have any ideas why this happens, or
can you provide a solution (other than copying the
games to harddisc and resetting the machine)?'
Have you asked Argo about this? It sounds to me
like the software is running continuously under
interrupts looking for something like a disc eject.
There is really no need to do this but there is no cure
I know of other than to get back to Argo.
with serial cable priced £29.95 from The
Really Good Software Company. I've not
tried this method myself so I can't comment
on it's suitability.'
Thanks, if any readers want to contact John I
will pass on your letters. Stuart Pigneguy from
New Zealand, who describes himself as an ex-
Acorn A4000 user, is perhaps seeing the folly
of his ways.
'I just love the thought of using Acorn
computers. I used to own an A4000 with 2Mb
RAM, to me they were the best computers in
the world, nothing could compare. Until my
friend's got IBMs and they asked me to
create a network and play IBM compatible,
games. I decided to sell the A4000 and buy a
new monitor for that 486 that I was getting
used to. Call me crazy (I do - Mike) but it
had to be done. I remember there was a
software programme called PC emulator
that ran an early version of PC DOS.
Now I am wondering if there is such a
thing as an Acorn emulator for my
IBM? I think that if there is no such
thing, somebody should do something
about it. Out of all the things I like about
Acorns, they cost so much! Where does all
the money go? Into flawless software and
hardware?'
I think you've answered your own
question there, the money went into a
machine that is still running and viable but
cost more. It seems that the majority of
English and U.S. society want the lowest price,
irrespective of quality. This doesn't apply to
all nations, which explains why Acorns and
Apples are quite popular in places like
Scotland, Holland and German. As I have said
before - people like rubbish, look at the best
selling newspapers or highest rating TV
shows.
As to the hoped for lifeboat in the form
of an emulator, sorry there isn't one and
there is not likely to ever be. The problem
is that you will have to emulate the operating
system and that is copyright Acorn (now
licensed to RISCOS Ltd). So the only chance
of a third party emulator is to reverse
June 1999 http://www.acornuser.com
Mike Buckingham (yes the one who writes the PC column) had the sort of problem I like:
'/ was hoping you might he able to solve a RISC OS problem I have had for a long time. It's not terminal, just
annoying. Basically when pulling open some windows, the shadow effect at the edge does not get overwritten
properly with the background - so it leaves these lines across the backdrop. As I write I've just noticed a major
clue: it happens on the V oyager mail box screen but not on Voyager's compose mail window.
' The difference would appear to be the 3D effect on the former - absent on the latter. What I don't
know/can't remember is what applies this effect, whether it be an official bit of RISC OS ora patch that has crept
in and remained. I don't use NewerLook, but I have a feeling there is a 3D effect in there somewhere that might
have been added when I have played with such things. I shall go hunting: maybe I've just solved my own
question, but maybe not - so if you know the answer....'
However before I could put fingers to keyboard back came the second part of his message:
'Hmm - an object lesson in the idea that formulating the problem clearly enough for someone else to
understand often solves it. If that's not an axiom maybe I'll claim it. It was indeed 3DRomPatch. Without it life is
flatter but has fewer black lines.'
engineer it. Considering that will take tens
of man years, no one will want to put in
that effort. You could probably buy up all
the remaining Acorn stock with that sort
of resource.
Chris James knows what those mysterious
files are on the Sony Photo discs.
can shed some light on the queries
regarding the Sony Mavica digital cameras.
First, the JPEG files produced by the current
cameras (FD51, -71, -81 and -91) are all
standard JPEGs, and open into any
compatible RISC OS application. It was only
the first generation cameras (FD5, FD7) that
had problems, and that was solved by
passing the image files through JPEGtrans.
The promo disc you received was a Director
presentation and it w r asn't very exciting.
'The hidden files are 411 YUV-encoded
files 64x48 pixels in size that the camera uses
as its own thumbnails. For all intents and
purposes, once the diskette has been
removed from the camera, they are useless.
As for the disk system, it is remarkably
convenient. Taking images using the FD81
takes only a few seconds to compress and
record - the Sony 2x drives are excellent. For
my work, we use these cameras a lot, and
swapping discs is no less easy than
swapping memory cards.
'If, like me, you need to record over
200Mb of images over the course of four
days, then I can't recommend this range of
cameras highly enough. The battery that
comes with the FD81 lasts for about 2 hours
of continuous use, which equates to
approximately 250 images on 10 discs at
640x480 resolution. Since we use them all
day, we have two spare higher-capacity
batteries, each capable of running the camera
for up to 3 hours. The camera has a natty
little display showing how much time is left
on each battery, and experience indicates
thatt it is very reliable. Well worth having.'
Next, Allan & Michael Curtis from down
under have not been getting much joy:
'We assembled your Joystick interface in
the June 1996 issue of Acorn User for a Dick
Smith (a Australian electronics retailer) PC
joystick. Unfortunately, it doesn't work. We
have made three (minor) changes to the
interface -a "pass-through" parallel port
which is quite simply wired in parallel with
the input, a switch with an LED so we can
tell if it is on or not, a 9 volt battery with a
voltage regulating transistor wired in
accordance with the data sheets.
'We notice that on your Sound Sampler
project that you have included some extra
circuitry besides the battery and transistor
for battery operation. Should we put this in
our own circuit? We know some of it works,
because the software recognises we are
pressing buttons, but not the movement. The
parallel port wiring must be reasonably OK
because the pass-through port works - that
is, we can print with the printer connected
through it/
Sorry to hear you are having problems,
I am sure it is your wiring. The fact that
you get print through and sense button
pushing does not test much really, you
need access to an oscilloscope to see what
is going wrong. You should see pulses on
pins 2 and 10 of the 74LS123 when the
software is trying to access the joystick.
Try removing the joystick and connecting
the input resistors to 5 volts. The joystick
test program should give you the
minimum value.
Check that you are getting pulses on
pins 13 and 5 of the monostable. If that is
the case then make sure that these pulses
are being mixed together and are appearing
on the collectors of the transistors. Check
that the transistor's emitters are earthed
along with pin 8 of the 123. Some people
don't know what that symbol means, pin 8
(of 123) and both emitters and pin 4 of the
joystick should all be wired together. As
to the supply usually you put a 2uF
capacitor each side of the regulator
and a 4K7 load resistor on the regulated
side.
A R Triggs from Cullompton has a
question that is perhaps more worrying
than he knows:
'How do we get rid of the irritating
little bugs that seem to grow with the
passage of time? Before my harddrive's
electronics gave up eighteen months
ago, my Rise PC started to give error
messages prior to shutdown, such
as 'buffer overflow', 'disc drive empty',
and so on. It also required up to six
attempts to drag the RAM disc facility.
These problems all cleared up with
the replacement of the harddrive. Since then
it all ran normally until six months ago when
the errors began again.
'The latest problem was having to do a
reset, using the reset button when trying to
run the PC card. The symptoms being a
black screen with a blue pointer, which did
move with the mouse, this being the only
control that worked. Having changed it's
start up to the icon bar, it will sometimes
run, but usually fails with error messages
such as, 'PC card failure type = S'. What does
it all mean, and how can it be fixed?
'In this part of the world it requires a
hundred mile round trip, or a courier, to visit
a suitable centre of knowledge/repair. I
would imagine that other users must have
had similar problems, and have fixed
them. Any ideas, other than the drastic clean
up the harddisc, and reload all software
option?'
Reloading all the software is a PC
solution not really applicable to an Acorn
machine. You see, PC software is so bad
that you get all sorts of software conflicts
and periodically just clearing it out will
sort some things out. However in the
Acorn world things are a lot better and
there is less opportunity for software to
screw up in this way. Now this means that
you have some bad news, your computer
has a serious fault.
It sounds to me like this fault caused
your last harddrive to crash, and so you
replaced it but didn't actually cure the
problem. The fact that it went away for a
time could point to your problem being an
intermittent connection on the logic board or
in the memory SIMM sockets, see Johm
Crane's contribution.
These are always the worst types of faults
to track down because usually you don't
know when they are fixed. What is worse, the
disturbance of taking or posting it to a dealer
could even cure the fault and the dealer will
find nothing wrong with it. Nevertheless I
think getting it to a qualified service centre is
your only realistic option before your
harddrive is trashed again
http://www.acornuser.com June 1999
ADVERTISERS'
INDEX
Alsystems 40
Aleph One 52
APDL 16
Archive 12
Argonet 29
Cannon 19
Castle Technology 1FC, 69
CJE 20, 55, 69
CTA 4, 5, 68
Datastore 62, 69
Desktop Projects 14, 69
Eesox 22
Electronic Font Foundry 40
Expo 73
Icon Technology 9
Irlam OBC
Jaffa 32
Liquid Silicon 32
Pinapple Software 52, 69
R-comp 44
RGS 22
RISCOS Ltd 26
Southeast Show 73
Spacetech 1BC
STD 52
Contacting us
Editor:
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Enquiries:
enquiries@acornuser.com
Advertising enquiries:
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PC page:
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Games page:
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Pineapple have been in the Acom marketplace for over eleven
years and we have recently moved into laige new premises
where you can see a variety of Acom equipment in action. We
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Open 0900 - 1730 Mon - Sat
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June 1 999 http://www.acornuser.com
JSCL
The world's number
Textease
You already know what a great magazine Acorn
User is. It is the only Acorn magazine with up-
to-the-minute Acorn news, in-depth hardware
and software reviews, and without doubt the
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What you might not know is that by taking
out a subscription today, not only are you
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and adults.
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Your chance to experience
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The "On the brink..." video is a non-
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world's computers and what you nei
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http://www.acornuser.com June 1999 V.
letters
Write to
reply
Take my money
In his Clares Report, Number 11, Dave Clare
writes 'I sincerely hope that RISCOS Ltd
succeed... but I will not be investing any of
MY money in the company - they still require
funding if anyone wants to invest a minimum
of £3000... we will give every assistance we
can/
I wonder if RISCOS Ltd is going the right
way about ensuring financial backing if they
are only prepared to accept capital from
investors who are affluent enough to cough up
a minimum of £3000. It is all very well and,
indeed, logical for Element 14 to invest in
RISCOS Ltd (to the tune of 19.9% of available
shares, I believe) but I believe the latter are
missing a great opportunity to secure its
future if it excludes Acorn fans who are not
quite so well-off.
I believe that there are many of us, like
Dave Clare, who want RISC OS to succeed in
its aims. It has occurred to me that many of
your readers may wish, like me, to be able to
assist in supporting the company by investing
in smaller amounts than £3000 but on a
An odd one
regular basis. Couldn't the company operate a
share purchase scheme in which people can
subscribe smaller amounts of money on a
regular basis by Standing Order, say, £364
annually or £182 half-yearly or £91 quarterly
or £30 monthly or £7 weekly?
The point is that, rather like the principle
of unit trusts, capital could be acquired
through many people investing small amounts
of money individually which collectively add
up to a very large amount.
It would seem to me that RISC OS Ltd is in
a very similar position to ARM in its infancy.
If anyone is unaware of the significance of
this comment then a look at the share price of
ARM (or even Acorn) in the Electronic section
of Stock Market published in the Financial
Times or the Daily Telegraph should be highly
educative!
David H. Foss
foss.family@argoiiet.co.uk
Paul Middleton , RISCOS Ltd MD, replies:
Unfortunately for us, the stock exchange is a lot
more tightly controlled nowadays, and the
Financial Services Act makes it illegal to simply
advertise Shares in a new company without going
through a lot of expensive procedures.
The rules are there to protect investors from all
sorts of scams that could otherwise he used to seek
investment in companies that never have any
intention of trading, hut were to he used solely to
take money from unwitting investors.
As a Private Company Limited by shares as
opposed to a PLC, RISCOS Ltd can only have a
maximum of 50 new investors in any 12 month
period. Moreover, the investors must have some
reason, other than just expecting a profit from their
investment, for taking up shares in RISCOS Ltd.
In general this means that Investors should seek to
profit by the success of other businesses that rely
on the products to he produced by RISCOS Ltd.
It would have been nice to be able to advertise
for hundreds of small investors, but legally we
cannot do that.
If the release of RISC OS 4 is as successful as
we hope, then we may be able to afford to change to
a company that can be invested in by the general
public, but the costs and timescales involved didn't
make that an initial option.
Paul Middleton, RISCOS Ltd
WorraCAD help
Has anyone any idea of how to get WorraCAD
(v.1.21) working on a Rise PC 600 (RISC OS
3.5). When I try to run it I get an error
message: Fatal internal error: (SIGSEGV). I
have tried to get in touch with the original
authors but have had no success. I also have
a copy of Apollonius PDT (v.1.09) which locks
up my computer at frequent, irregular
intervals.
Any thoughts on this would be much
appreciated, once again I have tried to get in
touch with the authors but haven't been able
to.
Much as I would like to buy a copy of the
very impressive ProCAD+, I cannot really
justify spending £225 (with the Acorn User
discount) plus VAT, of my schools very limited
capitation on a 'new' programme.
Any help would be much appreciated.
Nick Tinker
priorydt@argonet.co. uk
New audio format
I wrote to 'Rambles in Acorn Wood' asking for
a conversion of WinAMP, and lo and behold
one did appear (although it's not been
released yet!). The pre-release info is at:
http://ocean.ucc.ie/99/oshea/acorn/
soon.html
However, I've now got a new challenge - a
new audio format called TwinVQ has
appeared, anyone fancy trying to persuade
them to do a conversion? The company in
question has a site at http://www.vqf. com/
Kato
axe623@novell4.bham.ac.uk
I don't know what happens, you move house, your subscription gets mixed up - next thing I
know I'm not even sure if there is an Acorn Computers anymore! And to top it off, strange things
have started to happen, and I don't know where to get any answers. All of a sudden I feel like an
angst ridden teenager (minus the spots - well, those kind of spots anyway).
The first mystery surrounds a disc I have been using, in a perfectly normal fashion, to store
text documents. It has been housed properly, handled carefully and used moderately. Why-oh-
why then can it suddenly be unformatted, and my data lostW I'm tearing my hair out - I'll be bald
within a week.
Worse than this, in an effort to keep up with the Joneses, Evanses and Grifithifthsses 1 bought
myself the HP890c GT1 16v twin turbo'd mega printer. Heaven help me ever getting a printer
driver suited to it so that it prints like a GTI as opposed to a Lada Borsi special.
In the post RISC PC II RIP scenario is there any hope that the support will appear in
areas like this allowing Acorns dedicated users (15 years in a darkened bedroom and proud
of it) the opportunity to utilise the most modem hardware, or are we frozen in time along with
ambition?
If anyone there can help with any of my problems it would make me feel less alone in
computing terms. And with any luck I'll have my subscription back on track soon and can find
out what on earth is going on. Keep up the good work.
Simon Morgan
mathew.colin@unioncal.com
Um....anyone? - Ed
June 1999 http://www.acornuser.com
The Dutch Acorn Computer Users Club
Acorn Expo '99
Demonstrations and Presentations by Clubmembers
Dutch, German and British RISC OS Dealers
Hotel Mercure Nieuwegein, Holland
Saturday 5th June 1999
http : //www. nedernet . nl/~bigben
i LUB !? es «v
P - Parking
• - Station
SATURDAY 3rd July 1999
Alban Arena, Civic Centre
St. Albans, Herts
Doors open from 10am until 4.30pm
FREE bus shuttle from St. Albans train stations
Supporting RISC OS
in SE England
Theatre programme: 1 1 am - Beyond the Rise PC
12am - Acorn product scene
2pm - Future of RISC OS
3pm - TBA
FREE floppy + software
» Latest products » Software to be won!
» Hobbyist / Games area » Special show discounts
Adults £3.00 / ARM Club or Foundation £2.00
Children under 16 FREE (accompanied by an adult)
[Pay at door]
Tel : (01707) 390 410
Fax : (01707) 390 410
E-mail : acomshow@argonet.co.uk
http : //www . argonet . co . uk/ acorns how
To Watford
Junction A
Alban
Arena
I began
to think I
wanted to
provide
something in
return for
what others
had provided
me.
I t s aDout tne nrst sunny any tms year, and I m in a
park in Welwyn Garden City on one side of a
stream. On the other side, suffering for the cause of
photography, is John Stonier, perched in a tree
with his fiancee Helen.
'If there's a good photo of Helen and me can you
use that?' requests John. 'It would be nice; we are a
partnership. What you should do is set up a Web site
with a few photos from each shoot which you didn't
use - now that would be interesting/
A lot of people will remember John as the sysop of
the Digital Databank BBS, but for the past two years he
has been organising regional Acorn shows - his next is
the Acorn South East show at St Albans in July. He's a
long-time Acorn user, going back to the days of the
BBC B.
'It was in 1985 when I first got involved with
comms. I bought a state-of-the-art 1275 modem and
was logging on to Prestel for e-mail. A lot of people
think that the Internet is new and that comms is new,
but it is not; it has been going for a long time.
'I used Arcade, and began to think I wanted to
provide something in return for what others had
provided me. I had always wanted run a bulletin
board, so I got ArcBBS , plucked up enough courage
and got two phone lines. 1 even took out a small ad in
Acorn User. I managed to get in to comms purely by
mistake and I really caught the bug.'
It was a good thing that John was into
comms because it was through the Internet on a
Christian singles Web site that he met Helen. 'It was
quite funny,' interjects Helen. 'I had just got e-mail
and was looking for people to e-mail me. We got
on so well that the first time John phoned me the call
lasted two hours.' John is working
on getting Helen involved in Acom
shows.
'The last show was OK,' admits
Helen 'because I found something to
do. In the same venue as the show
was a Conservative women's
conference but there were no
signposts, so I had to direct people
and guess who was there for which
event at the same time.'
By 1996 John faced an awkward
decision. The BBS was becoming a
hard slog, and less rewarding.
Although he'd initially had to get
more phone lines, he was now
seeing numbers drop off as the
Internet became more popular. What
was he going to do to support the
Acorn community in the future if he
closed the BBS?
'The ARM Club used to organise
one-day shows. I was a
representative of Welwyn and
Hatfield Computer Club and we, as
a group, used have our own little
stand. I got involved in the ARM
Club committee and with Ralph who
did tne snows, out who didn't really have time to
organise them.
'My first show was in July 1997 at Welwyn Garden
City. It was hard work convincing companies to take
part, but they did and it was full up. On the day people
were pouring in through the door. Straight away I
knew it was a success. It gave me a real buzz being
able to turn up at a show that I had organised and see
the Acorn community, which I try to support as much
as possible, getting something out of it. I thought this is
it, the new area I want to move into: organising Acorn
shows.'
Show organising is now always on John's mind.
Even at the Ideal Home Exhibition this year he was
more interested in how the show was run than the
exhibitors. He'd like to organise shows for a living
but there is not quite the market for it in Acorn
community. He'd also have to give up his day job as a
landscape gardener. He's enthusiastic about both,
probably because his job and his 'hobby' are so
different.
'When you turn up for a show you do not know if
any one else will turn up, and believe me it does lead
to a lot of pressures beforehand. Then there are always
problems - I think what gets me through at the end of
the day is my own strong faith in God. That is a real
encouragement to me. I always believe that it is God
who has entrusted me with these opportunities so I
have always given 100 per cent. My drive has been my
faith.'
John still has to put on one of his biggest shows of
his life, his wedding: 'It would be a lot easier if it were
a cyber- wed ding'.
Jill Regan
June 1999 http://wvvw.acornuser.com
A'AsW.S'/
See us at Wakefield for Fantastic Show Offers
All Olympus Cameras Down in Price
Fully fu nctional BJC7000 and BJC7100 PhotoReal Driver
PHOTODESK 3 is the iL&ytLSL'Q' package which defines studio quality
image editing and artwork on RISC OS machines. It is easy to use but has many powerful
features, including LAYERS and a sophisticated colour management system (CMS) for
the full-time graphics professional. £299.50 PHOTODESK2 is still available,
^retaining the CMS but not layers, HOW Only £1 99-00)
HOTODESK LIGHT, an economic alternative to PHOTODESK3 retains most of its
:reative features apart from the Colour Management System, Layers and some features
to the professional user. £134.75 Plug-in Effects Packs are available for all
packages. Each pack contains 10 special effects: £19.95
Purchasers of Photodesk 3 or Photodesk Light will receive a
complimentary CD-ROM of useful resources, utilities and
Tutorials. This CD is available to existing users for £24.95.
A NEW CD-ROM M An Introduction to Digital Art"
featuring bitmap and vector graphics tutorials by the well-
known artist, David Cowell, is also available for £24.95
ihl:
A New Version of TopModel2 V.2.14 is now available for £152.75. Existing
may upgrade for £29.95. or buy the NEW CD-ROM packed with
the new plug in Top3DFonts! and a free 2.14 upgrade for only
SINCRONIA will be with us at Wakefield, with the renowned GIANCARLO
demonstrating new Plug-ins
P A presentation package on CD -ROM from Spacetech
Makes your slide shows quick and easy to create!
• Start building your presentation 5 minutes before the lesson? - No Problem
• Use your existing work in a presentation? - No Problem, just drag 'n drop it in!
Only £29.95
camoras PhOtoLink is an Acorn multi-driver for the most popular makes of digital camera. Cameras
currently supported include the new Olympus range including the fantastic C900 ZOOM, the
theC830L a new replacement for the 840L and the C1400XL SLR Zoom. Superb hard copy can be
obtained via Epson or Canon PhotoReal. PhotoLink is available on its own at £69.00 or bundled
FREE with a camera.
New Prices! C1400XI_ £749.99 (was £999.99) C830L £399.99! (was £549)
C900ZOOM Zoom megapixel compact with Optical AND Digital zoom £549-99 (was £649.99)
PhotoReal is the Acorn driver extension for the Canon BJC4300, BJC4650, BJC7000, BJC
7100 Epson Photo, Photo700 and PhotoEX printers with photo-realistic capability. PhotoReal
makes use of the same advanced techniques for producing high-quality four colour separations as
Photodesk and comes ready calibrated for the special dye-based inks used for photo-realistic printing.
A calibration application is also supplied to allow you to tailor the results to your own specification
Driver only £69.00 Inc.VAT. or FREE if purchased with printer! examples: Stylus
Photo700 £249.50. Canon BJC4300 £149.95 BJC4650 A3 £299.99. BJC7000 £245,
BJC7100 £299.00, Epson PhotoEX A3 £454.73 (all prices include PhotoReal Driver)
ATI Prices Include VAT
Spacetech Ltd
Courtyard, Southwell Business Park, Portland, Dorset, DT5 2NQ, U.K.
Telephone: +44 (0)1305 822753 Fax: +44 (0)1305 860483
Email: sales@spacetech.co.uk Web : http://wvvvv.spacetech.co.uk
Videoclesk is a powerful non-linear video
editing system. It allows full-size, full-colour
and full-motion video to be edited to frame
accuracy, and effects and titles added. The
finished material can then be output back to
video for recording or display.
Key Features:
• Composite and S-Video inputs and outputs.
• 50 fields per second capture and playback.
• 24 bit colour range.
• Resolution of up to 768 pixels x 576 lines.
• High-quality uncompressed still grabs.
• VITC Timecode input and output.
• 16 bit stereo audio inputs and outputs.
• Audio sampling at up to CD and DAT rates.
• Multiple audio tracks (polyphonic).
• Instant playback of edits.
• High performance Replay movie capture.
• Multi-level undo and redo.
• Edit Decision List (EDL) generation.
Rise TV is a unique multimedia digitiser
complete with built-in television tuner and
audio processor, which allows you to watch
television on the desktop and digitise high
quality still images from the tuner or an
external video source.
Unlike other digitisers, Rise TV uses
special hardware to overlay video directly.
So, full motion video can be displayed in
24 bit colour, with no processor or bus
overhead. Now you can watch television
and use your computer!
Sophisticated video editing software is supplied as
standard, which is flexible and simple-to-use. Editing
is performed on a multi-track time-line with separate
audio and video tracks.
Video effects are generated digitally and include over
100 dissolves, wipes, fades and slides. Comprehensive
titling software uses the RISC OS outline font system,
and titles can be made to scroll, flash, fade and be
overlayed onto the video.
We support Epson's range of high quality
colour flat-bed and film scanners, suitable
for home, school and business applications.
All scanners are supplied complete with
our renowned Proimage driver software.
As the leading independent supplier of
digital cameras to the Acorn market, we
have support for over thirty different
models from the leading manufacturers -
Agfa, Epson, Olympus, Sanyo, and Sony.
Contact us for full details of scanners and
cameras, and latest pricing information.
I
For the Complete Picture...
Irlam Instruments Ltd,
Brunei Science Park, Brunei University, Kingston Lane, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UB8 3PQ
Tel/Fax: 01895 811401 Email: sak.'S@irlam.co.uk
Visit our website: www.irlam-instruments.co.uk
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