|-------------------------- 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 Acorn Group PLC. |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| ISSUE 36 27 June 1999 |
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| To send in your news items or comments, use the ANS website, |
| or e-mail them to ans@acornusers.org. |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Featured site this issue: http://www.argonet.co.uk/acornshow/se99/ |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
Contents
--------
1) General News
2) Commercial News
3) PD/Shareware News
4) Club News
5) ANS information
General News
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1) RC5 Cracking Effort
Distributed.net has implemented the team members statistics on the new RC5
statistics box, which means that members of the Acorn User Group cracking
team can now receive information on how well they are doing in the team.
For more information about the distributed.net RC5 project, and how to
support the Acorn users team, see http://www.acornusers.org/rc5/.
2) Arcade BBS gets Home Highway
Arcade BBS now features a high speed 64Kbps link to Demon Internet at
weekends, and a third access number at all times. BT Home Highway has been
installed on Arcade's "FidoNet" line, providing an additional dial-in
number.
The three Arcade BBS modem dial-in numbers, quoted in the new national
numbering scheme, are now:
* BT Main and Auxiliary: 020 8654 2212 (two lines as before)
* Via Highway Channel 1: 020 8655 4412 (Fidonet access number)
* Via Highway Channel 2: 020 8655 1811 (NEW access number)
BT Home Highway enables Arcade's Weekend Internet event to offer improved
64Kbps throughout to more callers. The BBS-linked Web server offers full
download access to every file in the 1GB legacy filebase. Weekend Internet
is on Saturdays and Sundays from 14:00 to 20:00 BST. Point your browser to
http://arcade.demon.co.uk/filepages/findex.htm.
You can also access the filebase by FTP to ftp://arcade.demon.co.uk/.
Download the text file list from ftp://arcade.demon.co.uk/flist.txt or
at any time from http://www.arcade.demon.co.uk/files/flist.txt.
Arcade's Telnet server allows full ANSI-emulation login over the Internet
to Arcade BBS itself. Try it next weekend telnet://arcade.demon.co.uk/!
3) Acorn Arcade updates
Following a bit of a quiet spell over the exam period, Acorn Arcade
http://www.acornarcade.com/ is now back into full flow. The reviews
section has been revamped, and now includes reviews of Richard Wilson's
recent platform game Botkiller2, and several new freeware games.
The site also features a preview of the up-coming Heroes of Might and
Magic II expansion pack - Price of Loyalty, and by popular request the
'latest from comp.sys.acorn.games' page has returned.
Other recent updates include news on Quake, a preview of RCI's soon to be
released flight sim, F16 Fighting Falcon, and an in-depth look at the
Mico, MicroDigital's new RISC OS machine.
4) Potential Cerilica road show
Cerilica is currently considering hosting a road show in the year 2000.
The principle purpose of such an event is to push its new design and
publishing package, Cerilica Vantage, beyond the customer base RISC OS
shows are able to offer - be the customers existing RISC OS users or those
unfamiliar with the platform.
In order to plan for what would be a very large undertaking, Cerilica
would be very grateful if potential visitors could complete a simple
questionnaire that can be found on Cerilica's web site
http://www.cerilica.com/.
Please note that this road show is still very much in the discussion stage
and there are no firm plans at present - it may not take place at all if
it is found to be non-viable.
Commercial News
---------------
1) Super fast 32bit IDE interface with DMA from Microdigital
Microdigital has announced the release of their new 'Awesome' IDE card.
Based on the Mico's motherboard controller, this podule interface operates
at four times the speed of the standard ADFS IDE controller.
For more details see http://www.microdigital.co.uk/.
2) Cerilica to attend South East Show
Cerilica http://www.cerilica.com/ is taking part in this year's Acorn
South East Show organised by John Stonier. This show is more 'compact'
than the recent Wakefield 99 Show, but should provide just as much
interest. It is also much more convenient for those living further South.
Cerilica will hopefully be showing some further developments with its new
design and publishing package, Cerilica Vantage, which will include
special fills. These promise to be very impressive and flexible.
There will be plenty of staff to give one-to-one demonstrations and advice
about the package, including the professional designer, Richard Cassidy of
Graphite Design and Dave Santorum, one of our most active Beta
testers/users.
For details of the show, which will be held on Saturday, 3rd July at the
Alban Arena, St. Albans, Herts., visit the official web site
http://www.argonet.co.uk/acornshow/se99/.
3) OvationPro to be published by David Pilling
From the 1st of July 1999, publication of the OvationPro DTP program will
be taken over by its author David Pilling.
All contact regarding sales, support etc. should in future be to
david@pilling.demon.co.uk.
David Pilling commented, "By buying OvationPro off Beebug, I hope to
ensure that it will be developed further in the future. The first
improvements are likely to be in 'large image handling', ie allowing
large images to be kept on disc separately from documents, and the
implementation of graduated fills."
There are some changes to pricing. In future all copies will come with
the colour publishing supplement - formerly sold separately.
* OvationPro GBP150
* Upgrade from Ovation GBP140
* Site licence GBP300
All prices include VAT in the EU, and air mail delivery where appropriate.
The OvationPro mail list will continue to operate as before, while the web
site has moved to http://www.pilling.demon.co.uk/ovationpro/.
4) Imago now on Millipede web site
Millipede has uploaded some information on the new Imago Concept
Motherboard to the company web site http://www.millipede.co.uk/.
Apart from the addition of USB, the specification has not changed much
since Wakefield. For hardware types, there is an outline of the board with
component placement (as it was a few days ago). The site will be updated
as development progresses.
Millipede be exhibiting again at the Acorn SouthEast Show this coming
Saturday 3rd July. The Imago board will not be ready to demonstrate, but
it is close to completion.
PD/Shareware News
-----------------
1) Q-Lock, Mail-Lock encryption software updated
New versions of Q-Lock and Mail-Lock have been released at
http://web.bham.ac.uk/N.M.Queen/pgp/acorn.html.
Q-Lock is a utility that enables you to encrypt all your sensitive data
with a high level of security, and to retrieve it, in a very simple
manner.
This new version contains major enhancements over earlier ones. The main
changes are:
* A directory manager for creating new 'working directories' or for
securely destroying existing ones and all their associated files.
There is no longer any need to do this by hand.
* Better trapping of error conditions.
* Greatly improved security.
Mail-Lock is a similar utility, which enables users of ANT Internet Suite
mail program Marcel, to encrypt sensitive mail folders with a high level
of security. This new version contains major enhancements over earlier
ones.
2) Translator 8.10 batch processing
Translator 8.10 can now perform batch processing in a simple yet powerful
way. You process one image 'by hand', in any way you please. After that,
you simply instruct Translator to process all other images in the same
directory in the same way.
In addition, Translator 8.10 has improved TIFF support. Basic forms of
Group 3 Fax and Modified Huffman compression are now supported by the
reader, and the Predictor tag is now understood.
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 BMP, Clear, GIF, JPEG, PBMPlus, PNG, Sprite and TIFF
formats. All new Sprite formats are supported.
Translator is available from http://www.inter.nl.net/users/J.Kortink.
Note that Translator is shareware. Please register if it proves useful to
you.
3) Free language/dictionary software
Philip Murray-Pearce has produced three RISC OS 3 applications which may
be of interest to those who work with languages.
* Onomata
A vocabulary tester capable of handling various European and Asian
languages.
* EuroDict
A dictionary allowing translation of words and phrases to and from
English and any language using a European script.
* Jiten
A Japanese-English English-Japanese dictionary using both European
(romaji) and Japanese (kanji, hiragana, and katakana) scripts for
Japanese words (an earlier version of this program appeared on the
Acorn User 200 cover CD).
All three (along with a couple of other non-linguistic items) are
available for free download on the author's website
http://homepages.which.net/~philip.murray-pearce/.
4) XServer - an X windows server for RISC OS desktop
The first public release of, XServer, an X windows server for the RISC OS
desktop, is now available from http://www.inkvine.fluff.org/~vince/. It
is freeware released under the GPL.
5) Isis - freeware spreadsheet program
An initial request for comments release of Isis, a freeware spreadsheet
which should work on most RISC OS machines, is now available from
http://www.alphapro.demon.co.uk/.
6) Full versions of VTi software available
By agreement with VTi (now Argo Interactive), Jason Tribbeck is now
authorised to release Sonor, Sonor Jnr, Talking Canvas Junior and Desktop
Tracker on http://www.tribbeck.com/ and ftp://ftp.tribbeck.com/.
Note that there is no support nor warranty available for these products.
These are available with on-line and off-line HTML manuals, and some
examples are provided (with more on the way).
7) ASM 4.01
Version 4.01 of ASM, a freeware ARM assembler is available now from
http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/tigger/programs/progs.html. This corrects
a macro-related bug in version 4.00
Club News
---------
1) June/July meeting dates from AAUG
The following user group meetings are planned for June and July. Always
check the AAUG web site http://www.aaug.net/ to confirm details.
June 1999
=========
29th - Acorn Club NorthEast meeting
30th - Bristol Acorn User Group meeting
July 1999
=========
7th - SARC meeting - TBA
7th - Wakefield meeting - Ovation Pro
8th - North Kent Computer Club meeting
9th - Welwyn Hatfield meeting
12th - Southampton meeting
12th - SASAUG meeting
12th - DARC meeting - Advanced Pluto (TBC)
13th - Bottisham Acorn Usergroup meeting
13th - Liverpool Acorn Usergroup meeting
13th - Essex Acorn Usergroup meeting
27th - Acorn Club NorthEast meeting
27th - Blackpool meeting
28th - Bristol Acorn User Group meeting
The AAUG website provides details of all the user groups worldwide, and
how you can benefit from becoming a member. For more information, visit
http://www.aaug.net/.
ANS Information
---------------
1) Contact ANS
Editor - James Sears - james@ans.acornusers.org
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Founder - Eytan Abrahams - eytan@ans.acornusers.org
Life-Webmaster - Richard Hesketh - richard@ans.acornusers.org
ADL Moderator - Paul Johnson - paul@ans.acornusers.org
Translator - Michael Gerbracht - michael@ans.acornusers.org
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------------ Acorn News Service, http://www.acornusers.org/ans/ ------------