|-------------------------- Acorn News Service --------------------------|
| http://www.acornusers.org/ANS/ |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| The Acorn News Service is an independent service. |
| It is in no way connected with, or supported by the Acorn Group PLC. |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| ISSUE 18 17 October 1998 |
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| Editor: E.Abrahams ------ eytan@acornusers.org |
| Sub-Editor: J.Sears ------ james@acornusers.org |
| Webmaster: R.Hesketh ------ richard@acornusers.org |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| To send in your news items or comments, use the ANS website, |
| or e-mail them to ans@acornusers.org. |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| > Random site pick this issue: http://www.cybervillage.co.uk/ < |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Nearing the 500 subscribers mark! |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
Contents
--------
1) Editorial
2) General News
3) Commercial News
4) PD/Shareware News
5) Club News
6) ANS information
Editorial
---------
Yes Phoenix, No Phoenix?!
ANS in association with Convergence International are proud to be able to
keep the Acorn Community up to date with the developments of this matter.
The ANS newsletter will not feature news items or reports on this subject,
as it is all covered in detail on the site.
Current news includes the recent announcement that the Steering Group are
stepping back from negotiations with Acorn, who are now in direct talks
with a Dutch company that the Steering Group introduced. Details at
http://www.acornusers.org/phoenix/announcements.html
The site is constantly being updated, if you want to be informed by e-mail
when changes are made use the form on the site. Check it out at:
http://www.acornusers.org/phoenix/
Enjoy yet another issue of ANS. Please remember to send in those news
items to ans@acornusers.org .
Nearing the 500 user mark, ANS is getting larger and larger. Thank you for
all your support! If you know someone who would be interested, but does
not currently subscribe, please feel free to forward this e-mail.
Subscription details are at the end of the newsletter.
Thank you to all those people who are participating in our site watch. If
you would like to help ANS by keeping an eye on a web site, and reporting
news to ANS, please contact eytan@acornusers.org .
--ANS
General News
------------
1) AcornSite free ads
AcornSite have added a free ads page for people to use to buy and sell
Acorn hardware and software. It uses a guestbook to display the free ads,
so your ad will appear as soon as you fill in the form.
Also the site of the month has been updated using the votes submitted last
month for users' favourite Acorn computer related site, so take a look at
http://www.visitweb.com/acornsite/ to see if you site is in the top ten.
The AcornSite Site Update is a way of letting people know about updates to
your site. Simply fill in the Site Update form at AcornSite when you want
people to know about changes, updates or new contents on your site, and
your message will be displayed in the list of updated sites.
Also more links, email addresses and PD software pointers have been added
to the current pages. All of the above can be found at AcornSite:
http://www.visitweb.com/acornsite/
2) Evolution Demo Competition announcement
Following the shock news from Acorn the Rev 98 demo competition was left
without a venue (Acorn World) and without the main prize (a Phoebe).
Despite these set backs the organisers and competitors have got together
and have created a rescue plan - The Evolution Demo Competition.
The competition will go ahead as planned, but will no longer be a party
event. All entry rules are the same as for Rev 98, but the deadline is now
1st December 98. Entries submitted by this date will be placed on a cover
CD and will form part of a Demo Special in the February issue of Acorn
User. Readers will then be able to vote for their favourite demo.
The CD will also feature the Classic Demos Archive, a large collection of
demos from the last 10 years, as well as a Techie section with source code
and mini fx contributed by coders.
If you would like to sponsor Evolution or require further information
please contact Paul Wheatley at unclepaul@arcade.demon.co.uk . Send all
demo source code or mini fx for the Techie archive to Paul Thomson at
pat@dcs.ed.ac.uk , and demos for the Classic Demos Archive should go to
Stuart Lovegrove at stu@scs.leeds.ac.uk .
3) Acorn StrongARM development boards for the Digital TV market
Acorn recently announced that it is delivering development boards based on
Intel's StrongARM technology for the digital TV market. Acorn is expanding
its design services programme for StrongARM reference designs, as well as
adding to their broadband Digital Video Receiving devices roadmap. Acorn
is currently designing low-level system components and software for new
StrongARM digital TV applications.
Stan Boland, CEO Acorn Group said, "We are pleased to be working with
Intel as part of our ongoing commitment to StrongARM technology. With its
high performance and low power, the StrongARM architecture is ideally
suited to deliver the capabilities required for the emerging digital TV
market."
Bill Johnson, vice president, Intel StrongARM and Bridges Division, said,
"Acorn is one of the original StrongARM technology visionaries, and it is
expanding its role by providing StrongARM development boards for the
digital TV market."
Source: Acorn Cybervillage, http://acorn.cybervillage.co.uk/
Commercial News
---------------
1) Music Items MAD sale....
Q-Tec are having an office clear-out, they are getting a little pushed for
space so the following must go. Never to be repeated, VERY special offers:
* Only one FATAR 900 Studio x-demo (only 8 months old)
...too nice to waste away in our office, needs a good home!
offer price 350ukp (normal RRP GBP550!)
* ...with Qwiklock stand and Solo MIDI interface
offer price 400ukp (normal RRPs GBP500+59+89!)
* SoloMIDI 1x1 Interfaces (new):
...only twenty left, first come first served...
offer price 40ukp (normal RRP GBP89!)
Also Karelia2 is now being sold for only GBP35 (was GBP65).
See http://www.q-tec.demon.co.uk/bargains/bgainmain.htm for details of
other offers.
2) Acorn User Subscription Line
The new phone number for Acorn User subscriptions (new ones, queries and
renewals) is: 0870 6060424.
Acorn User's new web site is at http://www.acornuser.com/
3) ChiBER: RISC OS in a PC box!
ChiBER is one possible future route for RISC OS computers. The ChiBER
system will consist of a RISC OS compatible operating system (ChiOS)
running on a StrongARM processor on a standard PCI card, which can slot
into an off the shelf PC.
For full details see http://www.chios.org.uk/
4) Cerilica and Astute Graphics loss of data
The main hard disk of a key computer used by Astute Graphics and Cerilica
Limited (Project Avante) has failed, resulting in the loss of all recent
e-mails back to the start of September. People who have contacted Cerilica
or Astute Graphics during this time should e-mail again.
5) Acorn Publisher 25th Issue
The 25th issue of Acorn Publisher has just been distributed.
This issue contains part 3 of the in-depth series on scanning and image
processing, plus a review and other features on Photodesk 3, articles on
designing logos and posters, a review of Sleuth 3 and many other regular
features on Acorn desktop publishing, image processing and web page
design.
Special offer for new subscribers: start your subscription with this issue
and you will also be sent the magazines with parts 1 & 2 of the scanning
series at no extra charge (UK, non-UK please email first).
UK subscription is GBP24.95 for one year (six issues). Contact
akalat@kbnet.co.uk or telephone +44 (0)1582 881614.
6) WimpWorks v2.23
Jaffa Software have just released v2.23 of their successful application
development tool, WimpWorks.
WimpWorks allows anyone with a knowledge of BBC BASIC to produce powerful
multitasking applications on any machine with RISC OS 3.10 or above.
Jaffa Software strongly recommended that all existing users upgrade to
v2.23 due to numerous improvements and the new ability to upgrade via the
WWW from at http://www.jaffasoft.co.uk/
Existing WimpWorks v2.x users can upgrade free, price for others varies.
Upgrades to v2.23 can be obtained by e-mailing info@jaffasoft.co.uk.
PD/Shareware News
-----------------
1) Infestation
Infestation is a new top view, four player game by David Stubbs. It is
sort of a cross between moon/marsquake, bubble-bobble and a few other
games.
The basic idea of the game is that you must fight your way through a
series of levels destroying all the evil nasties on the way. You have
bombs, targeting missiles, mines, and a rather clever device which allows
you to spawn your own 'good' nasties.
The final game will have 20 creatures with varying abilities. Each has 8
levels of intelligence so even old creatures can be suddenly dangerous.
There will be 100 levels in four different graphics themes, plus a
selection of head to head battle levels. There will also be a level editor
for creating your own masterpieces.
All this will fit on, and play from, the smallest of floppy disks and run
in less that 1MB of memory on even the lowliest (RISC OS 3) machines.
For more information and the download see:
http://www.fen.bris.ac.uk/students/as6966/Programs/Infestation.html
2) Squeak Smalltalk v2.20 now available for RiscPC
Squeak version 2.20 is now available for the Acorn RiscPC with RISC OS 3.7
or later. See http://sumeru.stanford.edu/tim/pooters/squeak.html for
details and to download.
The download is about 5MB and expands to about 10MB on disc. You need
5/6MB of free RAM to run it, though it should be possible to configure it
to run down to a 4MB machine with some work.
This latest version has added a web browser, mail reader and web server,
but still lacks sound and serial port access. Offers of help most
gratefully received.
Squeak is a public domain Smalltalk system, the original object oriented
programming language and environment, from which most OSs have learnt
about windowing, pixel displays, menus and so on. You will need to read
about Smalltalk to make best use of it, since it is likely to be quite
unfamiliar to you at first.
3) BBC ticker 0.23e
The BBC News Online Ticker app (!Ticker) has now reached version 0.23e,
download from http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Lights/7724/ticker.zip
Ticker is a small application which provides scrolling news and weather on
the desktop. The stories come directly from the BBC WWW server, which is
updated regularly. Each item of news can be clicked on to open the full
story in your web browser. It is fully configurable to allow you to view
only the headlines in which you are interested. !Ticker requires an
Internet connection.
For details of Ticker and recent changes see:
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Lights/7724/
4) Gameboy emulator sources released
The source code of a Nintendo Gameboy emulator is now available at
http://hrz.uni-paderborn.de/~n96477/mops.html
5) Create lots of sums with Sums
Sums produces a simple text file of sums, in the form A+B= etc, primarily
for use by teachers that need to produce a large number of practice sheets
of sums.
Sums covered at the moment are:
* four rules
* adding and subtracting mixed
* multiply and divide mixed
* four rules mixed
* ordering numbers
* halves and quarters of
Download it from http://www.llamas.demon.co.uk/
6) Acorn Church clip art
There is now some new PD clip art for Acorn Users to download as well as
some multimedia church tour software. Details and download from
http://www.wavenet.co.uk/users/backwater/church/
[Frames required for the web site, very unhelpful noframes text.]
7) Translator 8.00
Translator 8.00 has been totally rewritten from scratch, in C++ and
assembly code. The highlights:
* Translator is now a proper editor
* It is fully up to date with the latest hardware and RISC OS versions
* Contains most features of the 'old' Translator and Creator & GreyEdit
* Multiple images may be loaded
* Employs its own 'virtual memory' for image storage
* Size and number of images only limited by hard disk
* Support for selections
* Proper scaling algorithms
* Numerous other improvements
Translator is a pixel image viewer, processor and converter, all in one.
It is able to read and write a wide variety of pixel image formats, while
also providing a good set of processing functions with which these images
may be enhanced and manipulated.
Translator can read AIM, BMP, CadSoft, Clear, Degas, GIF, IFF, IMG, Irlam,
JPEG, MacPaint, MTV, PBMPlus, PCX, Pineapple, PNG, QRT, Sprite and TIFF
formats. It can write Clear, GIF, JPEG, PBMPlus, PNG, Sprite and TIFF
formats. All new Sprite formats are supported.
Translator 8.00 is shareware and is available now from
http://www.inter.nl.net/users/J.Kortink/
8) AcornICQ Updates
A new version of AcornICQ, a RISC OS implementation of the ICQ Internet
person to person chat software from Mirabilis ,
is now available.
New features include a small patch to play an 'Uh-oh!' sound when you
receive a new message and a small fix that should prevent the machine
lockup problems some people have experienced.
To download and for details see http://the.hypermart.net/acorn/icq/
9) Speak Freely port
A RISC OS port of Speak Freely, a program to send and receive audio over a
network, is now available.
This is only a first release, which lacks some of the features of the Unix
and Windows clients. The only way to send audio is to drag a sample (Sun
Audio format, .au) to the window, real time audio coming from a sampler
is not yet possible. You can download Speak Freely from:
http://www.stack.nl/~michaeld/speak.html
10) HolyBible PD Resources
Torrey's New Topical Textbook
=============================
An index of 630 topics with over 30,000 Bible references. Topics are often
split into sub-sections with Bible references listed alongside. It has
been prepared as a PD HolyBible resource by Brian Scott. A review of this
product will be in the forthcoming Christian Acorn User Group Newsletter.
This Resource comes on 1HD or 2DD disks, prices and ordering details
below.
Easton's Bible Dictionary
=========================
Version 2 of this very popular resource is now available, and includes
improvements such as many more cross-links between articles and articles
tagged to relevant Bible verses. Purchasers of this resource are asked to
make a donation to their favourite charity in gratitude for the tremendous
amount of work done on this resource by Brian Scott. This resource comes
on 2HD or 4DD disks.
Other HolyBible PD resources are still available:
* Matthew Henry Concise Commentary - 2HD
* Preparing for Worship and PD Hymn Collection - 1 HD
* Tabernacle Resource - 1HD
* Storytime Resource - 1HD
* Midi-file Resource - 1HD
Prices are GBP1 for each HD and 80p for each DD disk. All orders for the
Christian Acorn User Group PD library should now go to:
Rev. Colin Randall
The Rectory
Swan Lane
Long Hanborough
Witney OX8 8BT
11) Bubble help goes PD: maintainer sought
Miles Sabin, author of Bubble help, is in the process of disposing of his
Acorn hardware which means he will no longer be able to maintain the RISC
OS Help replacement. Rather than abandoning the code it will be released
into the public domain.
The author is looking for a volunteer who is willing to take on
responsibility for the source and can host a download site for the
binaries, source and documentation.
A prospective maintainer's job is likely to be fairly straightforward:
Bubble help has been used by many thousands of users for several years
now, without any bug reports or feature requests since about 1995. Bubble
help 'just works' and, apparently, does everything anyone wants. As to the
sources, BH is 100% ARM code, built using Acorns ARM assembler, reasonably
well structured and documented, split over several hundred source files.
Any interested parties should contact msabin@cromwellmedia.co.uk or
miles@mistral.co.uk.
Club News
---------
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1) Help?!
Unfortunately, the user groups are not currently sending ANS any news
items. This may be an oversight or a result of recent events at Acorn, but
we hope this section will be up and running like normal next issue.
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