ÿÿÿÿISSUE5/AALP/INDEX.HTM Issue 5, ARM Assembly language Programming
ARM Assembly language Programming
Alligata Media
Contents
Chapter 3 : The instruction set
Chapter 4 : The BBC BASIC assembler
Alligata Media
ÿÿÿÿISSUE5/BHAM/INDEX.HTM Issue 5, RISCOS Midlands Show
RISCOS Midlands Show
Aaron's take on the most recent RISC OS show
I had concerns over the RISC OS Midlands 2004 show. I can express these concerns in two ways, will the venue be finished? Will anyone turn up? Let me explain this, firstly there was no show last year after the terrible fire at the National Motorcycle Museum. The museum was being rebuilt and was actually scheduled to open the day before the 2004 show, which is cutting it a bit tight. Secondly since there had been no show in 2003 would anyone remember that the show was on in 2004?
The morning of the show dawned a kind of dull grey with overcast showers, rather like me early on a Saturday morning. I dumped all the show kit in the Shogun and headed off across country to the M40. This took longer than expected due to being stuck behind a Sunday driver who was so slow he had actually had to leave a full day early. Having finally reached the M40 judicious use of the loud pedal recovered a bit of time, that was until the motorway slowed to a standstill. Why? I have no idea. Still eventually I arrived at the Motorcyle Museum with only a few minutes to spare. Luckily I travel fairly light and it only took five minutes to unload and set up the stand.
I delivered a monitor to Martin Wuerthner (it had been in the roof since Wakefield) and had a quick wander round annoying people until the magic hour of 10 o'clock and the show opened with a flurry of inactivity. Were any customers going to come? It looked like no, but the real answer was yes, it was just that they had all secretly decided to turn up 10 minutes after the show had opened to scare exhibitors.
After a few minutes customers started to appear and the show really got going. On the VirtualAcorn stand we had a steady stream of customers all morning and it was nice to see (to see you nice) a number of existing users who came along for a chat. We also picked up a steady stream of new customers over the entire day. Still that's enough about VirtualAcorn what about everyone else?
APDL were doing a very brisk trade in DrawWorks upgrades, Schema upgrades and their countless other products. I noticed a stack of clip art CD's that diminished to almost nothing by the close of the show.
Dave Holden hides behind a customer to avoid getting his picture in RISCWorld
Next door R-Comp's stand was continually busy with eager customers after the latest versions of Messenger Pro 3. CJE Micros had once again bought along almost anything you could possibly want for RISC OS. The ARM club were on hand to recruit more members, and to answer technical queries. ITC had loads of RISC OS spares and Martin Wuerthner was very busy all day showing off the latest killer features in ArtWorks2 as well as explaining the benefits of GimpPrint. In the centre of the show Finnybank were selling subscriptions to Acorn User/Acorn Publisher/Qercus. The charity stall had a selection of software but due to more bloody stupid EEC computer recycling legislation not much hardware. Next door Fortran Friends were showing off their wares to interested punters.
Look customers!
A grinning Mike Glover of Icon Technology was managing to sell out of TechWriter and EasiWriter upgrades with ease and of course Archive Publications were on hand selling subscriptions to Archive and Living with Technology. There were a number of other stands around including OreganoUK Ltd and others, but rather than name checking everyone lets move on and see what was actually new.
RISCOS Ltd
ROL were on hand giving out the latest details of Select 4 including the plans to use vector graphics instead of bitmap graphics for icons. Also hidden away were parts of the SIMON graphics acceleration project, including, according to some sources, various RISC OS AGP drivers. ROL were also trying to gauge further interest in Select32 for the Iyonix. ROL also had the Select 4 versions of various apps available for eager subscribers to see.
Geminus
Geminus is the name for a new bit of software from Neil Spellings, this allows you to connect two graphics cards to an Iyonix and split the RISC OS desktop across two displays. So in theory you can have two 2048 x 1536 displays (assuming you can afford 2 monitors of that resolution). A user could also have one task running on 1 monitor and the rest if the desktop displayed on the other. The API for Geminus will be released to third parties allowing software developers to take advantage of the 2nd monitor. Also on display was a slightly smoother version of CinoDVD, but due to problems with the speed (or lack off) with ADFS on the Iyonix CinoDVD still isn't available. Work is being undertaken on a new ADFS which should hopefully solve the problem.
Geminus
Which of course finally brings us to Castle Technology...
Castle Technology
Castle had previously promised to have on display an MiMagic ARM 9 board running RISC OS, and they were as good as their word. On display was a development board running RISC OS 5 on a MiMagic 5 (around 200Mhz) with a small keyboard and a 320 x 256 LCD touchscreen display. The development board was fitted with 64Mb of RAM and a 32Mb Flash card. A number of RISC OS apps could be used and the machine was also shown playing the old arcade game Zool, which should give some indication as to it's high degree of compatibility with RISC OS software.
The MiMagic board sounds very exciting and there was a lot of interest from RISC OS users, but at the risk of being shot down by the Castle Technology acolytes I think it's only fair to point out a few things.
Firstly from what I have been told this isn't a new product, it's actually an old Pace device. A number of those in the RISC OS community have seen this machine before at Pace's old Cambridge premises. Indeed talking to an ex-Pace engineer a few days after the show I was told that work was actually started on this project in 2000, that's 4 years ago. The board itself is a MiMagic development board, and isn't even a current one. Castle had apparently hoped to have a new processor for the show, but the new MiMagic processors won't fit the old development board. Drobe also reported that half the keyboard didn't work properly. The cynics amongst you might wonder if this was damage caused when the board was thrown in a skip by Pace, or perhaps when Castle pulled it back out? Who can tell.
Although the serial port, keyboard and the touchscreen were working fine there didn't seem to be any support for all the MiMagic's other devices including USB and audio capture.
Having a quick play with the machine would quickly show any user how unsuited the current RISC OS desktop is for small displays. Opening a simple filer window with a few icons in will fill the screen. If Castle are actually serious about this device then the desktop will have to be re-worked to fit the display size. Claims were being made that a "client" had signed up for the device, but what was on show wasn't even a prototype device it was more a technology demonstration and a flawed one at that. Still it would be nice to imagine a whole new raft of portable RISC OS devices in the hands of millions, but I am simply not convinced based on what was shown to the public. Hopefully Castle will have something more akin to a real device for the Wakefield Show.
Conclusion
So that was the ARM Club Midlands 2004 show. It was busier than I expected and was well worth attending both from a financial and a personal point of view. I am looking forward to the next show, RISC OS SouthWest in Feb with keen anticipation.
Aaron
ÿÿÿÿISSUE5/DISC/INDEX.HTM Issue 5, DiscWorld
DiscWorld
Aaron Timbrell rounds up the software directory
Rhapsody 3
Rhapsody is to a musical score what a word processor is to a book. It will enable you to enter a musical score onto the screen; to edit it in all sorts of ways, to save it and merge it with other scores, and finally to print it out on your printer in a variety of scales and formats.
In addition, (and this is something no word processor can do) Rhapsody will also perform your masterpiece, either through the internal sound system, using, perhaps, sampled voices, or through an electronic instrument such as a synthesizer which is fitted with a MIDI port. (To do this you will also need a MIDI interface fitted inside your computer.)
All the essential facilities for producing a piece of music rather than just a sequence of notes, are provided. These include repeats, dynamic markings, crescendos and decrescendos, accelerandos and ritardandos, staccato and accented notes and a huge range of trills and ornaments.
If you have a MIDI instrument, you can use it not only to play scores but also to help input musical parts. This can be done in real time while the computer is playing the rest of the score. Rhapsody is compatible with both Maestro and MIDI files so if you already have musical pieces in either of these formats, they can easily be converted to Rhapsody files.
Rhapsody has been carefully designed to be as easy as possible to use. It conforms closely with the guidelines set down for other standard RISC OS packages such as !Paint and clearly it owes a lot to the pioneer in this field - !Maestro, so if you are familiar with these programs, you will find Rhapsody very easy to master. This manual assumes that you are familiar with the RISC OS environment. If this is not the case please read the manuals supplied with your computer. You will soon find that choosing items from a menu and clicking on icons becomes second nature.
Whether you are an instrumentalist in search of a tireless and uncomplaining accompanist; a struggling pianist who wants to discover what your pieces should actually sound like; a teacher who wants a third Euphonium part in Eb tomorrow; or a budding (or even a professional) composer who wants to see your works in print and hear them competently performed, Rhapsody is the program you have been waiting for.
Important note for those who don't like reading manuals!
It is sincerely hoped that anyone familiar with RISC OS will be able to get started without having to read very much of this manual. Nevertheless, there are one or two areas in which even the experienced newcomer is bound to need a bit of prompting. In particular, all editing is done with the help of the Panel-1 window which is obtained by choosing 'Show panels' on the main menu. This window has several white icons. The contents of these icons can be cycled using the Select and Adjust buttons. Select increases the number or moves the selection forward by one, Adjust decreases the number or moves the selection back by one.
Secondly, Rhapsody differs sharply from Maestro in that you have to position a cursor in the score (by clicking on the score with Select) before you can add notes etc. Adding notes etc. is then performed by highlighting the desired icon and clicking on the green Insert-At icon in the panel window. When inserting notes, clicking with Select adds an upstalk note, clicking with Adjust adds a downstalk note. The yellow icons with arrows on are called Insert-Before and Insert-After respectively and the red icon is the Delete icon.
If you want to know what 'Capture' means on the main menu, you will have to read chapter 7. Sorry! You should also glance at chapter 8 if you want to print your score.
You can obtain interactive help by running the !Help application on your applications disc supplied with the computer.
The complete DiscWorld line up
As per usual we have our collections of the latest RISC OS games and applications, as well as support files for this issues articles. So the full DiscWorld line up looks something like this:
Games
All the games from this issues games world column.
Iyonix
MPEG Videos from the Iyonix Issues column.
LeyFind
Ley line finder by Martin Carradus.
Midlands
Some photos from the Midlands show.
PD
All the latest PD, shareware and freeware releases from the PD column.
ToolBox
This contains two sets of Toolbox Modules. The Castle archive contains the latest 26/32 bit neutral system components, required if you want to run a lot of new software releases on 26bit machines (ie. anything that isn't an Iyonix). The RISCOS Ltd archive contains later and improved versions of a number of modules and is suitable for all versions of RISC OS from 3.1 onwards.
Aaron Timbrell
ÿÿÿÿISSUE5/DTP1/INDEX.HTM Issue 5, Make your documents look more attractive
Make your documents look more attractive
Once you've put your document together, rather than have it looking bland and boring why not add some clipart to make things more interesting? David Bradforth takes a look at some recent releases that may be of interest.
Whatever the nature of the document you're preparing - whether it's a newsletter, leaflet, curriculum vitae or, indeed, anything else - most type of documents benefit from the use of fonts and clipart. As users of RISC OS, there are a number of sources of fonts; and you can access virtually any clipart file available for the PC with little effort as well.
In this article, we've brought together a number of items and have provided a few sample images; with the aim that you can find products that appeal to your needs. We will be featuring more roundups of this kind in the next few issues, so this should be considered the first of a number of resource articles
Fonts
Native RISC OS font suppliers used to be plentiful, but they've been getting somewhat few and far between over the years.
Zenta Multimedia, at
The Zenta website includes details on all their current special offers
The Electronic Font Foundry, at
ISV Products, at
Clipart and Photo resources
As so much work has taken place over the last five years on file conversion software, RISC OS users can now open pretty much any type of graphic file.
While they're not active in the Acorn market any more Sherston Software, at
>
Each of these CD-ROMs incorporates 200 royalty free images (in JPEG format) for use within schools; in three different sizes. Supplied with an unlimited site licence for school use, the menu on the disc is HTML and so - in theory - will load into the likes of Oregano, but you'll need to copy the file to your hard disc and make a few amendments to do so.
Sherston supplied the Vikings collection for review, and the content was divided into four areas: crafts, daily dress, daily life and warfare. It's clear from the start that an enormous amount of work has gone into putting together this selection - the scenarios and images are so clear and the quality so high that it's difficult to find any way to criticise these.
>>
A number of teaching ideas are supplied on the CD, giving projects and starting points for investigatory work. The educational value is sound, and some of the ideas sufficient to gain the interest of the 26 year old reviewing the title.
With other titles available, covering On the Farm, At the Zoo and Along the Coast, the Sherston Class Images series is a very nice idea, but at £99 per set perhaps a little expensive. Don't get me wrong, I can appreciate the phenomenal cost of producing this series, and it shows through the quality, but with other clipart collections available from £5 up, if the IT budget is running low it's easier for a teacher to pick up a CD for £5 than for £99 even if it lacks the project resources.
Call Sherston on 01666 843200 for details - just remember that the company has not officially released this product for RISC OS.
Focus Multimedia, working in conjunction with Hemera, have a rapidly expanding selection of clipart available for the PC. Of course, with a little effort, many of these titles are immediately available to RISC OS users. Focus kindly supplied five titles for review - Religious and Festive Clip Art 5,000, Business Clip Art 5,000, 115000 Clip Art images, 15,000 Educational Images and 15,000 Business Images.
Priced at £9.99 each, the titles contain a variety of resources from line art to photographic clip art as well as a selection of web resources. I don't have to comment on the quality - every item of clip art in each collection is stunning, and you should buy these without question immediately.
More of relevance is the file format used, and the ease at which you can access it on RISC OS.
The Religious and Festive and Business clipart collections use the same front end on the PC; which also means the files are stored on the CDs in WMF format. To access these on RISC OS you can either make use of the excellent tools written by Keith Sloan some years ago (updated versions are available on David Pilling's website, at
The 15,000 Educational Images collection contains material covering Building and Architecture, Costumes and Clothes, Currency, Dinosaurs and much; much more. The CD makes use of Hemera's image browser which, for PC users, will allow the files to be exported in a number of different formats. But can they be used on RISC OS? Unfortunately not - similar applies with the 15,000 Business Images collection.
With the 115000 Clip Art Images collection, the bulk of the images are not available; but the entirety of the web content is. You can easily copy the resources from this CD-ROM to your hard disk then make use of them within your favourite RISC OS applications without any difficulty at all.
So with the Focus Multimedia collections, the key to success is simple. Don't worry about the quality, as the quality of every image is stunning; but be careful of the file sizes. If you pick up a copy of a clip art collection within your local retailer, check that the back of the case states WMF format, or JPEG format, and you should be reasonably secure with your purchase working on RISC OS.
James Regan gives his his own view on RISC OS desktop publishing
With reference to your article in RISCWorld, I thought you might be interested in my own experiences working with RISC OS.
I first used a computer to produce artwork for publication whilst working in local government in the late 1970s. The machine was an IBM mainframe serving many remote workstations. There were regular crashes, but no one wished to go back to working at a drawing board. The files were plotted on a flat bed ink plotter at twice publication size and then photographically reduced. No fonts were available and annotation was added with rubdown lettering.
Due to political decisions made in the 1980s I found myself working for a national government organisation doing the same work, but using an IBM standalone RISC based computer.
The work produced was of a very high standard and the output considerable, although it must be said, the cost of the equipment and software was eye-watering.
Later, IBM were marketing RISC operating systems as the bees' knees and I remember going to the launch of a new IBM RISC based desktop, but heard no more about it after the launch.
Meanwhile, I had seen a friend playing with a BBC A, and it looked fun. I decided to invest in a computer of some sort and started shopping around. The Archimedes 3000 had just been launched, and was so highly recommended in one shop, even though they didn't sell them, that I scraped enough money together to make the purchase. As suitable software became available I built up my collection. (Techsoft Designer, Artworks, Ovation, ProCad etc.) It soon became apparent that, because of the relative ease with which a file from one application could be ported to another, I had a more flexible system at home than I was using at work, and I could produce better looking documents than those produced at work in-house.
My superiors knew what I was doing, and liked the result. I wonder what Acorn's sales force were doing? Water under the bridge.
At the time I could not see how the DOS based PC was going to survive.
Following Civil Service policy decisions to encourage people of my age to leave, I became self-employed and for over a decade have been doing much the same sort of work on my various RISC OS computers.
"Can RISC OS still stand its ground for professional publishing?"
In my opinion and experience the answer is "yes".
I produce illustrations for books printed by some of the largest publishers in the world.
They have been printed from my files by printers around the globe. To date the quality has been first class and met with all round approval. (They give me more work.).
I know for certain that products and structures designed using RISC OS based applications and hardware are on show throughout the world.
All the above reads like over-puffed conceit. That can't be helped.
The points I wish to make are these.
It's a great system; it's easy to use; it's flexible; it's reliable. Tell the right people.
There's no point in just telling people like me. We know already. Market the system better and target that marketing in the right areas.
Do I have any gripes? Who hasn't? Major gripe - help. With a few exceptions, the user guides are not comprehensive enough. Personally I would pay good money for PRINTED manuals. After a day at the workface I've had enough of screen watching. But I wouldn't object to curling up with a cup of cocoa, a warm wife and, for example, a comprehensive step by step guide to exporting various types of file from an RPC or Iyonix to some poor devil who's stuck with a Windows job and vice versa. I don't mind being considered computerly naive. Just give me the facts in a way that a child of six could understand.
James Regan
ÿÿÿÿISSUE5/DWORKS/INDEX.HTM Issue 5, A Secret History of DrawWorks
A Secret History of DrawWorks
Aaron
The story of DrawWorks goes a long way back, far beyond the setting up of iSV Products in 1994. Indeed the very first version of what was to become DrawWorks was being worked on in 1990 during my lunch breaks whilst I was working at EFF (Electronic Font Foundry) in Ascot. So what was this first DrawWorks? Well much to most peoples surprise it wasn't a piece of computer software at all, it was a book!
A Book?
Yes, a book. Let me explain why. At the time EFF were selling lots of DTP systems to small printers and publishers. Either Kevin or myself would do a demo of all the wonderful things you could do with Draw, Impression and the PostScript Printer drivers. However when the customers got the machines they got a bit stumped with Draw. How could a program that looked so simple be used to produce such impressive looking artwork? So we decided that a guide book was needed. We made notes on each of the effects we had both worked out and then turned them into simple step by step diagrams that showed how a user could achieve the same results. The book took a couple of months of lunchbreaks and evening sessions and was almost complete. Then two things happened.
Firstly we were asked if we could beta test a new piece of software called TopDraw (you may know this in its current form as ArtWorks) and secondly we were provided with a laser printed beta of the RISC OS 3 Programmers Reference Manuals by Acorn. Could we check the font section and make sure it was correct? Indeed we could check it and it wasn't correct. However we got somewhat distracted by one of the appendices that explained the Draw file format. Then a silly idea was formed, instead of having a set of instructions for people to follow why not write a program to automate the process? This would be much easier for the user and we could use the feedback we were generating for TopDraw for the still unnamed Draw add on.
What's in a name?
The first versions of what was to become DrawWorks were called DrawExtra, indeed the DrawExtra name survived on the applications Info window until the late 90's. Compared to a modern DrawWorks they were very simple. There was no feedback loop between Draw and DrawWorks and most of the DrawExtra functions were implemented by simply sending key presses to Draw as though the user had pressed the keyboard themselves. At this point I also started work on a set of stand alone applications that would process a drawfile that was dropped onto them, and allowed the user to save the result. The set of finished applications was far from intuitive, but was quite useful. However what name should the whole set of utilities be called?
The "DrawWorks" suite from 1993
At this point we were still playing with TopDraw and one day Kevin made the comment that he couldn't understand why Computer Concepts were bothering as "...draw works perfectly well." That was it, from now on the hotch potch of utilities was going to be called DrawWorks. Rather amusingly a few days later a new beta of TopDraw was delivered, this time called ArtWorks. So it's war!
Development in 1992/1993
Work progressed on tidying all the applications up and on bug testing (testing to make sure there were enough bugs present). Some time in late 92 or early 1993 the entire package was assembled and started to be sold under the EFF banner with me being paid (theoretically) a royalty. However although sales went quite well the royalty payments didn't and later in the year I took the entire DrawWorks package back and arranged for it to be sold by a third party, SmartDTP based in Derbyshire. By this time it was decided that EFF would continue finishing the book that had started the entire exercise off. However disaster struck and all the copies of the Impression files (including the backups) proved to be corrupted. Going back through the logs it looked as though at some point a defective copy had replaced the master copy and our home made incremental backup program had wiped out all the good versions...grrr... This was a great shame as the book had taken a lot of work and would have sold very well. I still have one copy of the book on an old floppy and dug it out while writing this article. Although I can get to the graphics the text is mangled beyond repair.
The launch of iSV products
As I explained earlier sales of DrawWorks had transferred to SmartDTP and for a number of reasons we needed a brand name to sell DrawWorks under. At the time the buzzword in the software industry was "ISV", standing for an Independent Software Vendor, so in the absence of any better ideas I decided that since I was setting up an ISV that sold products the company should be called ISV Products. The lower case i was introduced for no better reason than lots of cars happened to have lower case letter i after their names to signify fuel injection. In mid 1994 EFF underwent a restructuring which meant that I was out on my arse with a mortgage to pay. Since I was already making a couple of hundred pounds a month selling software indirectly I decided to go it alone and iSV products became my full time job. I needed software and DrawWorks was one of the packages that I owned 100% and could do what I liked with.
As a historical note one of the other packages I owned was what would become the Font Designers Toolkit. I had offered this to EFF to be met with the immortal line from Edward "....yes...but we don't want to sell rubbish...". Oh well. Having worked at EFF it was a quick matter to design some simple fonts and produce a font pack. So at Acorn World 1994 iSV Products was launched with three packages, a pack of 100 fonts, Font Designers Toolkit and DrawWorks.
DrawWorks 1 toolbar from 1994
DrawWorks wasn't an instant hit, but sales increased month on month and it pretty soon became obvious that I was on to a winner. So more and more developement time was spent trying to improve what, with hindsight, was a fundamentally flawed package. Work continued on updating and improving the existing apps and in writing new ones, some of which never ever saw the light of day, including the aborted DrawTrix2. However as 1995 drew to a close it was clear that DrawWorks needed a complete overhaul. Some of the principles were sound (the extra toolbar, the functions provided by the new tools) but the implementation was very poor, so it was time to start work on DrawWorks 2.
DrawTrix2 (never seen before)
DrawWorks 2
This was a major re-write from the ground up. The first job was to work out how the app was going to work. I quickly decided that I wanted to add a toolbar to draw that followed the draw windows around and contained buttons not just for the draw tools, but also to interface with all the separate apps that processed draw files. As such I decided that I wanted a seemless link between DrawWorks and Draw, so that to the user it seemed like one program.
The key to this was two library routines. The first was the DrawWorks OLE library. This allowed DrawWorks to extract the current selection from the draw window, process it in some way and insert the result back replacing the original. The other library was designed to reproduce clicks on draws menus. Earlier versions of DrawWorks had only been able to access menu commands that had a keyboard shortcut. The new DrawWorks needed to be able to open all sorts of menus as though the user were clicking on the menu themselves. Both of these sound quite simple, but run into one major stumbling block, there is no way of properly doing either on RISC OS.
To cover just one problem, the OLE library needs to save out the current selection, but you don't want to see the draw save window flashing up. So what DrawWorks has to do is send a save selection key press to Draw and then see what happens. if no save window opens then nothing was selected and DrawWorks should go no further (although some versions do pop up a silly error message). However if a new window opens then this must be the save dialogue box, but we don't want to see this so we must first disable the VDU drivers to stop the window being drawn. Then with the VDU drivers disabled we need to drag this new window off screen and then re-enable the VDU drivers before RISC OS gets the hump. Having got this out of way DrawWorks then needs to type a special save path name into the dialogue box to save the file where it needs to be saved. Then DrawWorks presses return and DrawWorks waits for the file to appear.
So assuming the file appears DrawWorks can then load it, process it in some way, and save the result back. Then Draw has to be convinced that a user has just dropped this file into the right place in the Draw window. Depending on the version of DrawWorks some extra mangling needs to be done to delete the existing selection from the Draw window before the new file is inserted.
If all the above sounds nasty then you are right, it's very nasty, but it does work and it's the only way I could find to make DrawWorks work on everything from RISC OS 3.1 or above.
Acorn World 96
DrawWorks2 was launched at Acorn World 1996. Having undergone a couple of months of intensive bug testing it went wrong within an hour of the show opening with a rather nasty bug. All the stock sold at the show had to be patched afterwards as although the bug was a bit obscure I didn't really want users to lose their work.
As well as the new insides DrawWorks2 had all new icons as well as a redesigned toolbar.
DrawWorks2 (Yuk)
As you can see this new toolbar was too big and too ugly, as users were quick to point out. However before re-working the front end I decided to get the internals working faster and better, which resulted in a number of upgrades culminating in DrawWorks 2.33 (DrawWorks Turbo) released at Acorn World 97. Now I was happy enough with the insides I again turned my attention to the front end and was wondering what to do with it when I started playing with a few Windows applications. One of these, and I forget the name, had two rows of tool icons, the ones shown on the bottom row being determined by which main button was pressed on the top row. This allowed the program to have lots of buttons without covering half the screen, which was a major DrawWorks2 failing. This was the solution and work started on a new DrawWorks called DrawWorks Designer. This and the later versions of DrawWorks that were developed from it will be covered in the next issue.
The Software Directory
I have dug through my old backups and have found versions of DrawWorks from each year from 1993 to 1996 and have put them in the software directory so that everyone can have a good chuckle at how awful they are. In some cases I have fixed a few old bugs and in the case of DrawWorks2 I have had to re-assemble a copy from various different backups due to floppy disc failure (hence the 1997 copyright date).
I always have trouble writing this bit of RISCWorld mainly because there are lots of things I feel like saying, but I don't want to say any of them...yet. Still, let's have a quick look at one particularly positive bit of news from the last couple of weeks. Castle Technology have announced a special offer on the base model Black Panther Iyonix, taking the price down to a very tempting £835 inc VAT. For this a customer gets 128Mb of RAM and more than ample 40GB hard drive, CD Writer and the usual cables, mouse and keyboard. Looking at the
This is quite a marked price reduction, as a similar spec machine in the beige mini tower case still costs £1249, so a user would be saving over £400 against the normal machine, and getting a better case into the bargain. Of course all special offers come at a price, and in this case anyone who purchased the motherboard only deal a couple of months ago might quite rightly feel a bit miffed, as they paid almost as much for a bare board as a new customer would now be paying for a full machine.
Let's hope that this new price becomes the new RRP for the base machine, as to be honest £249 really is a bit too much for most home users to justify, but under £850 is the sort of deal RISC OS enthusiasts need, after all the last issue of RISCWorld contained the following comment on the Iyonix "Right guys, why not just slash the price of the Iyonix and forget the cheapo free monitor?" I am glad to see that Castle took some notice.
Editors Rant of the month
The following is about the vehicular faith, not specifically about computing.
I was having a think the other day about what I could write for my vehicular editorial for this issue of RISCWorld. In the end the only thing I could come up with was the rivetingly exciting story of getting a new seat belt for the Shogun. You see its MOT was due and the driver's side belt was badly frayed. So I went to Mitsubishi's website and found the nearest dealer. At this point I should point out that "nearest" is a relative concept, they were still 25 miles away. Anyhow I rung them up, gave them the chassis number and ordered a seat belt. Next day I get a phone call to say the belt has arrived, so Hayley and I went to pick it up. Fitting the new belt was a doddle, as an aside anyone who as worked on 50's British cars will be well at home with the engineering on a Shogun. Then it's time to bait my breath and go for an MOT, which the Shogun passed first time. See it wasn't much of a story was it?
Now we will have the long winded "however" section...are you ready? Here it comes...
However a couple of days ago the power steering started loosing assistance at low revs. I opened the bonnet and couldn't see anything obviously wrong, apart from the belt being very slightly lose, so since a service is due in a few hundred miles I thought I would put up with it until then and then adjust the belt (before you start wondering all the belts were replaced at the last main service in March). So I carried on driving, blissfully unaware of what was going to happen. The 5th of January is my brother in law's birthday and a small evening party was organised. Hayley and I merrily bowled down the A329M and came off at the Winnersh turn. "The Shogun's been a great car hasn't it", said Hayley in a Murray Walker kiss of death style. As we started slowing down a few wisps of what looked like smoke appeared from under the bonnet. Then the engine cut out. Then a there was a major unscheduled steam event. I managed to coast down the slip round and off onto a muddy verge. There then followed a short outburst of words that almost rhyme with Horlicks.
So I popped the bonnet to be greeted with more clouds of steam. Hmmm, I think, Watson, the vehicle might have overheated. After a couple of minutes the worst of the steam cleared away. Removing the radiator cap revealed a very dry looking cooling system. Luckily we had a two litre bottle of water in the boot. Unluckily it was carbonated water. So Hayley spent 10 minutes shaking the bottle, then releasing the cap, then shaking again. The Shogun swallowed the water without any effect. So we called my brother in law and dragged him away from the party with a number of bottles of water.
Once he arrived we refilled the cooling system and started the engine. All seemed OK, but wait...is it raining? No. The radiator had sprung a leak and was spraying water out over the bottom of the engine. The fan was catching this, hence the rain. Luckily Halfords was only 5 minutes away so we went and purchased a bottle of RadWeld and dumped this in the rad. After 5 minutes or so the light shower ceased and we were able to drive on to our destination, and then drive home again. I haven't checked the water level this morning but I am going to drain the cooling system in a minute, as well as fit a new thermostat as the old one has jammed open, which means no heater, not ideal in the winter. With a bit of luck we haven't blown a head gasket, but time will tell.
So do you remember that power steering problem from the start of this little rant? Well it was caused by water jetting out of the rad and over the belt, making it slip. So if I had investigated it properly to start with we wouldn't have overheated and had the problem. So what's the moral? Well if you play silly buggers and don't do a job properly it can very easily blow up in your face.
Printing RISC World
The new look of RISC World means that you will no longer get the yellow background when printing articles from RISCWorld. However you will still get the blue border on the left unless you turn off the printing of background images. The example below shows the print dialogue box from Fresco.
As you can see the option "No Background" is ticked. If you want to print out any of the RISCWorld pages and don't want to waste ink on a blue border then make sure you have clicked a similar option in your browser.
Aaron Timbrell
ÿÿÿÿISSUE5/GAMES/INDEX.HTM Issue 5, Games World
Games World
Paul Brett with the latest gaming news.
Regular readers may remember that I commented last month that it had gone a little quiet on the gaming front. Well that's all changed for this issue with a host of new releases, and the freeware re-release of a RISC OS classic. So lets start with a very popular RISC OS game from nine years ago, TANKS.
TANKS
TANKS was released in 1996 and was quite a hit with RISC OS gamers. It was based on the popular genre of games that involved directing missiles over hilly landscapes in order to kill your enemies, the most well know of these games is Worms, which has been released on almost every format under the sun (except RISC OS). In may ways TANKS is actually a superior offering with a wide choice of fun weapons and addictive gameplay. Why don't I let the Author of TANKS, Rik Griffin tell us more about TANKS.
"Now, 8 years on, it's looking a little dated, so I'm giving a new version of the game away for free! The version has been brought up to date to work on newer RISC OS machines, like the Iyonix. Sadly the sound effects don't work on the Iyonix but I hope to resolve this soon. But apart from that, TANKS should work on any RISC OS machine from an A3000 to a RiscPC. RISC OS 3.1 minimum required and preferably 4 meg of RAM - that was a lot back in 1996 and I worked long and hard to make the game playable on a 2 meg machine! How times change. I'd like to do some more work and add new features to TANKS in the near future, if I have the free time, so please direct any feedback you have to the email address in the !Help file."
TANKS is played in rounds. During each round, the players take turns to launch missiles at the other tanks, and try to destroy them. The object is to be the last tank left, and also to inflict maximum damage on the others. Causing damage to other tanks brings you cash prizes, to spend on more weapons.
To set up a game, open the game options window (from the main iconbar menu). Set the options to your preferences, and then click OK. Then open the "Player options" window. You can type in the names of the players, and also select whether the player is human or computer controlled. The computer controlled tanks have four skill levels you can choose from.
Before each round, the players can buy new equipment for their tanks from the shops. To shop, click MENU on the iconbar icon and select either "Shops...". There are two shops, one for weapons and one for utilities. Switch between them by clicking the "U" or "W" icon in the shop window.
See the Impression manual for a description of how the various weapons and utilities work.
When you are ready to play the next round, select "Play next round" from the main menu.
The tanks are controlled using the mouse on the dashboard at the top of the screen. There are also keyboard shortcuts for most functions, these are:
Cursor up, down Increase, decrease shot powe
Cursor left, right Move tank's barre
Keypad +, - Change current weapo
SHIFT and keypad +, - Change current warhead / ammunitio
+, - Change current utilit
Space Fire currently selected weapo
Backspace Use current utilit
? Show current playe
ESCAPE Skip turn (no penalty
CTRL Q Quick kill - ends round, picks a random winne
CTRL F12 Abort roun
D Change missile display mod
C Toggle battery charge destinatio
P Toggle parachutes on/of
Page up, Page down Increase, decrease parachute opening distanc
Also, using the mouse, click on any tank for some information about it.
Tanks needs the latest Toolbox updates from RISC OS Ltd, these are included in the RISCWorld software directory.
LinCity
The
This has been ported by Alan Buckley and is a clone of the SimCity type real time management games that have become so popular over the last few years. In LinCity you start with a small village, or a blank landscape, and strive to build a huge metropolis.
As with other variants in the same genre you have a limited budget and have to provide for your citizens. You will need houses, roads, markets and will have to dig for raw materials. You will also need to connect all your developments together with roads. Of course you will also need power and be able to distribute the power to those that need it. As your town grows you will need emergency services, recyling centres and a lot more besides.
LinCity doesn't have a manual and instead relies in the excellent on-line help system that will explain all the icons and what they do quickly and simply. It's very easy to get started but very hard to build a thriving city without busting your budget!
GLHack
GLHack is a graphical version of the text based NetHack games. As such you are dumped in a dungeon full of monsters, your task is to retreive the Amulet of Yendor and escape alive. You can choose your character class at the start and this will alter the weapons and skills you have at your disposal. As you progress and kill more of the enemy your skill and stamina will improve.
A lot of potential players of NetHack may have been put off in the past by the crude ASCII graphics (me included - ED), but GLHack replaces these with much more modern sprites. I strongly recommend that you read the Guidebook supplied (press MENU over GLHack and click on Help) before venturing very far as you will need all the help you can get to defeat the monsters that are waiting for you.
That's all there is on the gaming front for this issue, I will be back again in March.
Paul Brett
ÿÿÿÿISSUE5/HUGHJ/INDEX.HTM Issue 5, The Hugh Jampton Experience
The Hugh Jampton Experience
Yes it's the man with an Omega user guide..
Welcome back to the most read* bit of RISCWorld. So without further ado let's freefall gracefully into last issues caption competition.
* According to a poll of one person in front of my computer, now.
The caption competition
Last issue we published this and asked readers to come up with a suitable caption...
So what have our highly motivated readers come up with this time?
"Anyone got a bottle of Tippex?"
Thomas Shevels
"I've eaten the dog - now what?"
Chris Newman
"Taxi?"
Steven Morton
"Shouldn't have trusted a Microsoft expert to design the notice!"
Chris Newman
"My owner is certainly no David Attenborough is he?"
Chris Newman
However in my mind (which is spacious and underused - ED) there can only be one clear winner, so step forward...
"What Dog?"
Dennis Williams
So congratulations to Dennis. We don't have any prizes, but why not take yourself down the shops and buy something expensive you don't want.
Anyway here is this issues picture, can anyone think of a suitable caption?
Send your entries to HughJ@riscworld.co.uk and you too could enhance you social standing.
Hugh's picture gallery
Moving quickly on lets see what's in my wonderful space filling picture archive...
Lets start off with Ken Livingston's latest idea to beat traffic congestion.
And for those of you, like me, who are astonished at the commercial exploitation of the Hamster Dance...
And talking of exploiting dumb animals...
Meanwhile in an attempt to capture a new market Microsoft launches another new product range...
Although some minor problems have been reported with slight over heating faults on other products...
After this sort of experience you really could do with a good cheer up.
It's full of your words, and doesn't feature any ...er...birds?
So lets start with some letters about the RISCWorld competition...
Aaron,
I dunno about anyone else, but I rarely enter competitions, especially if the prize is something I don't want. For example 'virtual golf'. If it had been a Virtual RPC you probably would have got more replies.
Regards,
Lol Simmonds
Errr...yes....you see the prizes we give away come out of my editorial budget. We could give away a couple of VirtualRPCs, but that would mean sacrificing several articles to pay for them. As you say that you rarely enter competitions anyway I'm not sure what I can do. I don't really want to reduce the editorial to pay for a couple of prizes for a couple of readers. The other key point is that the competition costs nothing to enter, just a minute to send an e-mail, and if you don't ever enter then you are guaranteed not to win, so even if it is something you don't want it's still free!
Aaron,
I think the answer to the VirtualGolf competition is Wentworth. Yes, I know you've given the answer now and the competition is closed, but you were complaining about the lack of entries, so I've just increased the number of entries for that competition by 100%
HTH :-)
VinceH
Thanks, I feel much better now. Now moving on to RISCWorld cock up corner...
Aaron,
Hmm.. turns out some browsers are stupid after all. Safari won't find the links to the second and third DTP articles from the current issue, simply because the filenames for the HTML files are in small caps... i wonder if Oregano is as stupid...
Dave
Well technically Safari is acting correctly. The links and files should be the same case. If you think about it most servers are Linux based, and on these upper and lower case letter are not treated as the being the same (unlike Windows and RISC OS). So the files Index.html and index.html would actually be two separate files. Some browsers try to compensate for designer stupidity by checking different variants of the case of the file name being requested. So to sum up I don't think it's Safari being stupid, I think it's me!
Dear Aaron,
Starting fresh in the New Year with my 42nd application - LeyFind see attached! Finds Ley Lines given file of grid references and degree of accuracy.
Can you tell me when will the next issue be coming out?
Regards
Martin Carradus
Thanks, we have featured LeyFind in this very issue. RISCWorld comes out near the end (typically around the 22nd) of every other month. So this issue will be arriving at the end of January, the next issue will be around the end of March, then the start of the next volume will be around the end of May.
That seems to be it for this issues letters column. So to avoid this column being rather short next time why not write in to us and tell us what you think of RISCWorld.
Aaron Timbrell
ÿÿÿÿISSUE5/LEYFIND/INDEX.HTM Issue 5, LeyFind
LeyFind
Martin Carradus
DISCLAIMER - AGREEMENT
Users of LeyFinder must accept this disclaimer of warranty:
"LeyFinder is supplied as is. The author disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, including, without limitation, the warranties of merchantability and of fitness for any purpose.
The author assumes no liability for damages, direct or consequential, which may result from the use of LeyFinder."
LeyFinder is a "shareware program" and is provided at no charge to the user for evaluation. Feel free to share it with your friends, but please do not give it away altered or as part of another system. The essence of "user-supported" software is to provide personal computer users with quality software without high prices, and yet to provide incentive for programmers to continue to develop new products. If you find this program useful and find that you are using LeyFinder and continue to use LeyFinder after a reasonable trial period, you must make a registration payment of £10 (UK) or $20 (US) to Martin Carradus. The £10 (UK) or $20 (US) registration fee will license one copy for use on any one computer at any one time. You must treat this software just like a book. An example is that this software may be used by any number of people and may be freely moved from one computer location to another, so long as there is no possibility of it being used at one location while it's being used at another.
Just as a book cannot be read by two different persons at the same time.
Commercial users of LeyFinder must register and pay for their copies of LeyFinder within 30 days of first use or their license is withdrawn. Site-License arrangements may be made by contacting Martin Carradus.
Anyone distributing LeyFinder for any kind of remuneration must first contact Martin Carradus at the address below for authorization.
You are encouraged to pass a copy of LeyFinder along to your friends for evaluation. Please encourage them to register their copy if they find that they can use it. All registered users will receive a copy of the latest version of the LeyFinder application.
Description
LeyFind finds straight lines of ancient sites given their grid references, the minimum wanted in a line and the chosen 'accuracy' of the line. Plots the sites and found lines on a 'map' of the chosen area. Map can be saved to a file, both before and after plotting of lines. This program is designed solely for use with grid references on grid systems not extending over more than 600 miles (1,000 kilometres). It is not designed for use with latitude and longitude and does not employ any spherical trigonometry in its calculations.
Information needed by the program and Options offered:
The Two Algorithms:
The basic (Quick) algorithm goes through all pairs of sites, establishes the line between them, then runs along it looking for other sites on the line within the desired degree of accuracy. At the same time all pairs of sites along the line are eliminated from further consideration. This is done by keeping an internal look-up table which records whether any particular pair has been considered or not before.
The elimination of pairs along the line is done without any regard to the direction of the line between them. This would be correct if all the points along the line lay exactly on it. However they usually don't and the algorithm tends towards radiating lines because any crossing lines tend to be suppressed. The second algorithm takes account of crossing lines by only eliminating pairs along an established line if the line between them lies sufficiently close in terms of its gradient (angle of slope). The user supplies an angle in degrees within which lines must lie to be eliminated. The first algorithm does find valid lines, but tends to exaggerate the radial look of the final plot of the found lines.
The overall problem with both algorithms is that it is conceivable that lines could exist where none of the points lie exactly on them. Both algorithms require that at least two points lie on it within the degree of accuracy of the swathe cut by the line.
Fixed Scan or Random Scan:-
A fixed scan goes through the pairs of sites in a systematic order i.e. site 1 with site 2, site 1 with site 3, site 1 with site 4 etc.
A random scan goes through the pairs in a non-systematic order e.g. site 6 with site 9, site 2 with site 7, site 4 with site 6 etc., but in such a way that all pairs are considered.
Fixed Start or Random Start:
A fixed start always starts with the same pair i.e. site 1 with site 2 A random start chooses a different pair each time the program is run. Hence a fixed start guarantees the same result every time, but a random start will tend to produce a different result every time.
In order of 'randomness' (from least to most), there is:
1.Fixed Scan, Fixed Start.
2.Fixed Scan, Random Start.
3.Random Scan, Fixed Start
4.Random Scan, Random Start
Creation of New File:
Offers the user the option of creating a file of grid references and immediately analysing it for ley lines. A new file may be created either internally or externally. An existing file can be appended to, to add additional sites. A record number is supplied to which you supply an easting, northing and site name. All three must be supplied, then click on the 'Next' button to move onto the next record. Click on the 'Close' button to close and end the file.
Otherwise the program will ask for...
Name of file of map co-ordinates:
This is the file containing the co-ordinates of the sites. The format of the file is a set of lines of values, each line consisting of a site number (not necessarily in any order), followed by the easting, followed by the northing, followed by a string of up to 30 characters. (The string being a name associated with the site.) These values are separated by commas. The easting and northing should be whole numbers and the string starts with a capital 'X' or small 'x' for an highlighted site or anything else for a un-highlighted site. The string can simply only be a single character if there is no name associated with the site. Names need not be unique. File should end with a new line.
This file may also be created by using something like Edit or DeskEdit.
It is checked as it is read in an elementary way. There should be at least ten sites in the file, but not more than 1000. Estimated time for processing the full 1000 sites is around two and a half hours with my StrongArm and RISCOS 4, less for faster chips.
Automatic Scaling:
Will adjust the scaling to fit in all the sites on the screen.
Will also adjust the scaling so that it is the same east-west as north-south. Otherwise usually unequal scaling in the two directions.
Manual Scaling:
The minimum and maximum co-ordinates east-west and north-south are chosen by the user, so that any area of interest can be focused on.
Grid Lines:
These are horizontal and vertical lines that indicate the change of grid reference across the screen. If you choose this option a suitable grid interval is suggested, which may be over-ridden. Program will not allow too many grid lines. Grid lines do not erase the supplied site points.
Sites in Line:
One of the two most important parameters. It is the number of sites found in a line below which the line will be rejected. Too small and the map will fill with lines. Too large and no lines will be found. It has been found that 15 is a reasonable amount to start with for about 200 sites.
Width of Line:
The second most important parameter. This is the number of pixels across the line within which a site will be considered to lie.
Can be fractional. This is across both sides, so if a value of 1.5 is chosen, the swathe cut by the line will extend by 0.75 pixels on either side. The screen mode within which this program operates means that the pixel (elementary part of image) is twice as high as wide.
Consequently the width of the swathe is adjusted so that when the line is near horizontal it is wider than when the line is near vertical. It is suspected that near horizontal lines will tend to be detected more easily than those near vertical. Points that lie too close together on the screen will be rejected, since the line through them cannot be determined accurately within the confines of the co-ordinates supplied. If the width is too small, no lines may be found. If the width is too large, many inaccurate lines may be found. A starting value of one pixel is suggested.
Bell Sound:
Single normal bell sound on each discovery and/or high-pitched bell sound on completion.
Titles:
An option of having a title after the plotting of points and before the plotting of lines and/or one after the plotting of lines.
Up to 72 characters including embedded spaces. Neither grid nor title before will erase the points on the screen as the points are plotted last.
ScreenSave:
Option of saving the screen to a RISC OS Sprite file, either after plotting of points or after plotting of lines. No recovery is offered if the file names the user supplies are incorrect in any way, but a message will indicate the ScreenSave failure. A 'Saveas' panel appears, where you may drag the file icon with the mouse to a suitable directory, if required.
Screen Display:
Points, Grid Lines and Title (if chosen). Chosen points highlighted in red. Rest in black. Background white. Percentage through process shown by an hourglass mouse pointer. On the title bar the actual number of lines found so far followed by absolute maximum found in all lines.
Holding down any key at at any time will halt the process, otherwise the completion of process, or a maximum of 1000 lines being found will also halt the process.
On Completion
The found lines are plotted. Those of maximum occupancy are plotted in magenta, the rest in blue. If there are none or a maximum of 1000 has been found, a message is displayed. The screen is saved, if this option was chosen. Close the window to end the program. From the bar icon menu, click on 'Reset' to repeat the process, possibly with a new file, or an old one with new run-time parameters.
Warning
This program merely takes the donkey-work out of finding ley lines and the accuracy of the results are not guaranteed. It does not substitute for actual investigation on the ground and map. Britain, in particular is virtually littered with ancient sites, so almost anything will fit. Straight lines of telephone boxes have been found in the past! The algorithm (method) used seems to bias in favour of lines radiating out of certain sites with the fixed scan. The random scan was introduced in an attempt to get rid of this bias. It is hoped to give the likelihood that the line could not have occurred entirely by chance, plus more statistics on the found lines in future versions.
Comments, queries, curses, and praise to:-.
Martin Carradus,
Leaf Mindcraft,
c/o 27 Wells Road,
ILKLEY,
West Yorkshire.
LS29 9JE.
U.K.
Enclose s.a.e. if you want a reply.
File 'Stones' within this application contains eight figure grid references of some of the cup-and-ring marked stones on Rombalds Moor (Ilkley Moor). Stones thought to date from 1500-1800 B.C. and no one is totally sure of the significance of the markings or even exact antiquity. Such markings are not entirely unique within this area or within Britain (know of others in Northumberland and Galloway). Even eight figure grid references only reduce the inaccuracy to a ten metre square, which is about the floor area of an average house, so not that accurate considering the size of the stones and the markings.
Would probably have to use satellite navigation to get any degree of accuracy and I don't know how these grid references were worked out in the first place. Grid references obtained from:
"The Carved Rocks On Rombalds Moor" West Yorkshire Metropolitan County Council 1986 ISBN 0 86181 008 2. Thought now to be out of print. Not all those available were put in the file.
There is now (2005) a more complete listing of the cup-and-ring marked rocks mentioned above in 'Prehistoric Rock Art of the West Riding' by the 'West Yorkshire Archaeology Service', editors K.J.S. Boughey and E.A. Vickerman, (2003) ISBN 1 870453 32 8, ISSN 0959-3500.
Information on those markings in Galloway can be obtained from:
"The Prehistoric Rock Art of Galloway and the Isle of Man" Ronald W.B.Morris Blandford Press 1979 HardCover: ISBN 0 7137 0974 X PaperBack: ISBN 0 7137 0975 8 Might also be difficult to get - I found it in a remainder book shop.
The files 'Test' and 'Test2' are test sets of grid references to demonstrate that this program really works! For 'Test' choose an occupancy of 10 and a width of 1.0. For 'Test2' choose an occupancy of 5 and a width of 10.0.
Both files are buried inside this application. Use 'Internal' to get them!
Good Luck in your investigations, but don't come to wild conclusions!
Martin Carradus
ÿÿÿÿISSUE5/NEWS/INDEX.HTM Issue 5, News
News
The latest news from the RISC OS world
Stuart Tyrrell Developments - BOGOFF in the January Sale
Stuart Tyrrell Developments are pleased to announce a special Unipod
upgrade offer for the month of January - Buy One, Get One For Free.
Unipod, voted "Best RISC OS hardware product" by the public in Drobe's
"Best of 2004", is a 32-bit 3-in-1 expansion card for the RiscPC whic
can be bought with the functions you require and be simply upgraded t
add further functions.
Unipod supplied with one function from: USB, Networking or IDE costs
UKP99.
Upgrades to enable further functions cost UKP25 each.
During the month of January, Buy One upgrade at UKP25 and Get One For
Free.
So - if you have (for example) a USB-enabled Unipod, simply pay UKP25
and get both IDE and Networking enabled. This would allow you to end
up with a Unipod with all three functions enabled for just UKP124.
This offer runs throughout the month of January, and will be applied
to all orders made before the 31st January 2005.
Not to be used in conjunction with any other offer. All prices include
VAT and carriage.
Further details of Unipod may be found at
Castle Technology supports ARM9
Castle Technology Ltd is pleased to announce RISC OS support for the NeoMagic
MiMagic 5 Applications Processor (SOC). The MiMagic 5 is ARM 9 based and
suitable for a wide range of handheld Information Appliances.
Neomagic are enabling outstanding technology for a new range of hand held
devices. The MiMagic Applications Processor offers one of the lowest power and
smallest form-factor packages. Together with excellent multimedia features and
performance the MiMagic 5 processor is a world class product.
The addition of the MiMagic 5 to the ever growing list of processors that
RISC OS supports, is a considerable benefit for the wider RISC OS community.
Castle is pleased to announce that the support for the MiMagic 5 is the result
of work being done by Tematic for large OEM customers in the embedded space.
Briefly, the MiMagic 5 Applications Processor provides the following:
220 MHz 32-bit ARM V4T compliant RISC processor (ARM922T).
Dual independent 32-bit DMA bus configuration.
Dynamically assignable DMA controller.
Very low system power consumption.
Frequently used codes can be stored in the SRAM.
Multiple power down modes.
Multimedia Enhancement Hardware-assist for video streaming and decoding.
Digital camera interface.
Low system cost.
Supports low cost NAND Flash.
Rich set of peripherals: SD Card, SDIO, MultiMediaCard, USB, serial,
audio.
Multiple Boot Options: Linear Flash, NAND Flash, UARTs, SD, MMC, or Serial
EPROM.
Video support up to 800 x 600.
Further information is available at: http://www.neomagic.com/product/mimagic5.asp
Development boards for the MiMagic 5 application processors will shortly be
available with evaluation copies of RISC OS 5. Developers interested in the
MiMagic 5 application processor should contact Castle Technology Ltd for further
details.
Castle will be featuring the MiMagic 5 demonstration board, running RISC OS
at the forthcoming Midlands RISC OS show at the Motorcycle Museum near
Birmingham, on the 4th December 2004 (http://www.armclub.org.uk/).
For more details please contact:
Jack Lillingston
Castle Technology Ltd
Ore Trading Estate
Woodbridge Road
Framlingham
Suffolk
IP13 9LL
Tel: 01728
723200
Fax 01728 727427
web http://www.iyonix.com/
Tematic call for RISC OS engineers.
Following a recent, highly successful volume Set Top Box (STB) deploymen
and a rapidly filling order book, Tematic has a requirement for contract an
permanent software engineers with RISC OS and embedded expertise.
Peter Wild, COO of Tematic stated, "Our focus on low power ARM processors i
the Set Top Box and portable consumer media markets has been very rewardin
for us in recent months. We now have a requirement for more engineers s
that we can continue developing our business to become a major supplier t
consumer electronics OEMs".
The new engineers will join Tematic's existing dedicated team in early 2005
to assist in developing RISC OS technology for worldwide markets. Th
successful candidates will be based at Tematic's new premises in Cambridge
on a salary that will reflect their experience and qualifications. A ful
benefit package will also be included.
Engineers applying should have a working knowledge of embedded environment
and experience in ARM Assembler and/or C as well as in one or more of th
following areas:
Device drivers for digital Video & Audio hardwar
Javascrip
Per
Protocols for video server
TCP/IP (specifically RTSP
Communication protocols for Ethernet and USB etc
Low power portable device
Those interested in applying should, in the first instance, send, fax o
email a comprehensive Curriculum Vitae to:
Jack Lillingston
Castle Technology Ltd
Ore Trading Estate
Woodbridge Road
Framlingham
Suffolk
IP13 9LL
Tel: 01728
723200
Fax 01728 727427
web http://www.tematic.com/
Tematic is a trading division of Castle Technology Ltd.
RISCWorld
ÿÿÿÿISSUE5/PD/INDEX.HTM Issue 5, PD World
PD World
Paul Brett with the latest freeware and PD releases for RISC OS.
This issue I thought that we would take a look at some updates to what I term more weighty RISC OS applications, the sort of programs that would give commercial software a run for it's money on other platforms.
Thumbcat V4.1 - Malcolm Ripley
Thumbcat is an image catalogue application. It will handle a variety of formats without additional applications. "Native" formats currently handled are : Sprites, Drawfiles, JPEG's, EXIF's and Digital Camera AVI's (if they have an embedded thumbnail). In addition it recognises ImageFS and ChangeFSI (if running or booted) and all formats handled by those applications.
It will handle files and directories dragged to the iconbar for immediate views. These can printed or converted to other filetypes i.e. batch processing. It also includes an editable image details database based on the EXIF tag standard. Catalogues can be pre-built from a directory(ies) full of images or appended to, by dragging from a filer window. Images can also be dragged from a Digiflash window and image related applications. It will create an HTML version of a catalogue. Read-Only sources can also be catalogued.
ThumbCat
The main changes to this version are the addition of index/contact sheet printouts and the inclusion of an HTML manual. The manual is pretty basic but it will improve with each future release.
All the changes since the last published release (v3.9) are :
Ability to convert an EXIF to "normal" JPEG and preserve the data has been restored after accidentally preventing it in V3.6b.
Contact sheet type printout of an album now possible.
The catalogue creation and maintenance window has been improved.
The ability to catalogue only the top level directory has been restored.
Improved progress window.
Catalogues on "unavailable" volumes no longer causes a crash.
Copying an image over itself (and deleting it !) is now trapped.
Copying from the detail view has a had a few anomalies fixed.
HTML manual now included.
Drawfile changed from v1.48 to 1.43 and not 1.38 to 1.35 !
Added check in case printer driver not loaded.
Added check in case drawfile destination not specified.
Modified tag translation for an unsigned real number of zero so that it does not generate an error (i.e. 0/0 !)Nikon Coolpix 950 exif
Also modified the signed real number tag for the same potential problem.
Country detection for Castle help was inserted at the wrong location in the !Boot file causing problems with variable Thumbcat$Dir. Now at the correct location.
Added PNG filetype to the list of those handled by ChangeFSI hence Thumbcat can now handle PNGs
DirSync - Jan-Jaap van der Geer
DirSync is a program that allows you to visually compare two directory structures. There are several ways of filtering the type of differences you want to see (only newer files, only files that exist only in one of the directories and so on). You can mark those files you want to be equal, select the direction of copying, and then synchronise them.
DirSync is almost freeware, but not quite. You must send Jan an e-mail (jjvdgeer@zapo.net) that you're using DirSync if you decide to leave it on your harddisc.
DirSync
New features in this version:
Introduced a new diff-plugin, DSDiff, that allows very flexibl
configuration. It allows you to preprocess the files (t
translate the file to text first) and then compare the resultin
files. This means you can now compare BASIC, Templates, Resource
Sprite and image FS files with the default configuration. You ca
view them with Harriet's SideDiff or Druck's throwback viewers
Ctrl-dragging an application to DirSync now finds where th
application is installed and starts a comparison with th
installed application
Bugfixes:
Fixed a bug that made DirSync crash while synchronising
Fixed some redraw bugs
Fixed problem with showing of filetype icons for filetypes under &100
The inclusion of the new plugin means that Jan needed to include some conversion tools as well. As these were released under the GPL, the result is that the release archive has become quite big (553 KB).
LaBella - Ray Favre
This ia a new version of Labella and adds a number of useful features, including the facility to print CD Labels, to what is a very useful label printing package. Labella is exceptionally feature packed and allows user to:
Create, load and save label definitions - including fon
choices/colours/line indents/justifications etc. (and a few commo
definitions are included as a starter
Display a single label or display a whole label sheet, a
user-chosen scales (including a display of the current printer drive
’print margins’
Print onto labels from records held in CSV files - choosing th
number of copies of each record, the starting and finishing records
the starting label position and the range and number of copies o
label sheet
Preview the printing, including showing the actual text from
CSV file and showing which record will appear on which labe
Add a drawfile graphic to each label
LaBella
Some of the facilities for power users include:
Switch the default label shape between rounded corners (normal)
rectangular squared corners (for envelopes) and circular (for C
labels
Choose a different font/size for each individual line of tex
Choose a different colour for each individual line of tex
Choose the text indent for each individual line of tex
Choose the justification (Left, Right or Centre) for eac
individual line of tex
Set the line spacing individually for each line of tex
Separate the last line of text by a user-chosen extra amoun
Add sequential numbering to each label, on any lin
Word-wrap any long text onto more than one lin
Print drawfile graphics onto labels (without text, if required
Scale and/or shift the graphic to the size/position you wan
Switch between normal (portrait) and sideways (landscape
display/printin
Print a label outlin
See how many empty (’blank’) records are in the loaded CSV file
and where they will appear when printing (and choose whether or not t
print any loaded graphics on them
Step through a loaded CSV file to see how any particular recor
will actually appear in prin
Strip quotes from CSV file field
Include or skip blank lines (i.e. blank fields
‘Lock’ the font/colour/indent values of a line to it
corresponding record field (so that a field’s appearance is no
affected by skipped blank lines
Select individual label sheets for printin
Store your drawfile graphics and CSV files convenientl
See how many label sheets are needed to print a complete fil
Organise your CSV files into sub-directories which ar
automatically translated into a menu/sub-menu structure for eas
loading
FlowerBox - Richard Wilson
FlowerBox is a screensaver that provides a three dimensional animation of a morphing object moving around the screen. It requires RISC OS 4 or greater,
minimum of a StrongARM processor, and Tinct installed. Many aspects of the screensaver's operation is configurable. Use the interactive !Help program for further information on the various options, or see the Settings section of this file.
FlowerBox
FlowerBox can either be installed into your !Boot sequence manually, or by running the provided Install file. If these files are in a Spark archive (Zip file) then you may need to copy them to another directory first. Please note that FlowerBox requires Tinct to be installed.
That is all we have time for this issue, see you in March.
Paul Brett
ÿÿÿÿISSUE5/REPTON/INDEX.HTM Issue 5, Desktop Repton Plus
Desktop Repton Plus
Matt Thompson marks the 20th anniversary since the release of the first ever Repton game, way back in 1985.
so what better way to celebrate 20 years of collecting diamonds and avoiding falling rocks, by bringing everyone's favourite lizard right up to date.
Desktop Repton Plus as the name implies, is an update of the Desktop Repton package with some new features added, upon loading you are presented with the standard Desktop Repton banner.
From here you can choose Repton 1, 2 or 3, they will then load into the icon bar, click on the icon and the Repton status screen will open and and you can start the game from there.
The most notable change in this version is the graphics, which have been considerably improved and are of a much better quality than the earlier versions, all the characters in the game have had their graphics updated, however should you prefer the original graphics they still exist and can be selected from the game menu.
At the moment, these new graphics are only available with Repton 1, but future releases may see this change.
The other notable difference in this release of Desktop Repton is the inclusion of lots of new levels, the Repton 2 + Repton 3 levels are the same as before, but there are lots of new levels for Repton 1, there are 6 categories in total, the original Repton levels, the ones from the PC version and also some new ones which are only in this release, so plenty of new levels to try and complete, this is a particularly welcome feature as despite the many re-releases of Repton, none of them have had any new levels to play so its good to have a new challenge.
The rest of the Desktop Repton program is as it was previously, Repton 2 + Repton 3 are the same , Repton 3 comes with the Around The World, Life Of Repton and Repton Thru Time screens, plus the usual level + graphics editors,and the game can be run in the desktop in a big window, small window, and in full screen mode, although currently only in the desktop mode on the Iyonix but this is being looked into and should be resolved soon.
There is the possibility that future versions of Repton 2 will include both the new graphics and levels from the PC version, and maybe from Repton 3 PC version as well, when it has been released. It would be good to have a new version of the game editor which allow you to make new levels with these new graphics.
Desktop Repton plus will run on any RISC OS machine from RISC OS 3.1 through to the Iyonix, however there is an issue at the moment with it running on the Iyonix as the new graphics do not get displayed only the original ones, at the time of writing this issue is being looked at and hopefully will be resolved soon, but the new levels are fully playable, just without the new graphics.
This is the best version of Repton so far for RISC OS machines, and is by no means the finished article either as there are plenty of options for enhancements to the game, I would recommend it to anyone who likes Repton purely on the fact that there are loads of new levels to play, but with the addition of the new graphics as well it really looks like a new game rather than just an update, my only real criticism is the use of the same tunes as the 1988 version, you can't have Repton 1 without 'The Entertainer' being played it wouldn't be the same, but there must be better versions of this tune out there than this maestro rendition.
This new version of Repton is just one of many new updated versions of old Superior Software BBC Micro classics that
I have been told that there is a new version of Ravenskull waiting to be converted to RISC OS just needs somebody to do it, so if you fancy doing this conversion, drop Alligata Software a line at the above mentioned email address.
Summing up then I highly recommend this to anyone who likes playing games, past and present Repton fans, and anyone who likes a challenge and being entertained at the same time, Repton is one of the all time Acorn greats and here he is still going strong 20 years after that first diamond was collected!
All rights reserved. This program is licensed for use on a single computer by a single user.
This version is supplied for the use of RISC World subscribers only.
Published by -
APDL
39 Knighton Park Road
Sydenham
London SE26 5RN
Phone : 020 8778 2659
Fax : 020 8488 0487
E-mail : info@apdl.co.uk
About !Rhapsody
Typographic conventions
Conventions used in this guide
Chapter 1
Introduction
Loading the Program
Simple editing
Dragging notes.
Playing your score
Chapter 2
Introduction
2.1 Basic procedures
2.2 Notes and Rests (Groups 1 & 2)
2.3 Accidentals ties and triplets etc. (Groups 3 &
2.4 Bar lines and repeats (Group 5)
2.5 Accents and trills (group 6)
2.6 Clefs
2.7 Key signatures
2.8 Dynamics
2.9 Time signatures
2.10 Tempo changes
2.11 Volume changes
2.12 Text and lyrics
2.13 Voice changes
2.14 Hairpins and Phrase marks
2.15 Grace notes
2.16 Spread chords
2.17 Guitar chords
2.18 Other symbols
Chapter 3
Introduction
3.1 The white icons
3.1a The note icons
3.1b The rest icons
3.1c The Accidentals and other symbols
3.2 The delete icon
3.3 The split & join icons
3.4 The move note icons
3.5 The align bar icon
Chapter 4
4.1 Adding new staves
4.2 Changing the stave data
4.2a Stave data
4.2b Voice data
4.2c MIDI data
4.3 The Stave Data panel
Chapter 5
Introduction
5.1 Step time capture
5.2 Semi-real time capture
5.3 Real-time capture
5.3b Quantisation
5.3c Split keyboard
Chapter 6
6.1 Playing your music
6.2 Play options
Chapter 7
Introduction
7.1 Marking a block
7.2 Re-tailing
7.3 Transposing
7.4 Shifting
7.5 Accenting
7.6 Changing the note style
7.7 Copying
7.8 Discarding
7.9 Clearing
7.10 Deleting
Chapter 8
8.1 Stave heights and slot widths
8.2 Brackets and Braces
8.3 Packing and Tidying
8.4 Headings
8.5 The Print options window
8.5a Time signatures
8.5b Triplets (round/square)
8.5c Triplets (all/essential)
8.5d Shared notes
8.5e Pedal signs
8.5f Rehearsal marks
8.6 Fonts
Chapter 9
9.1 Loading a score
9.2 Saving a score
Chapter 10
10.1 Formatting
10.2 The Preview window
10.3 The hot link with Scoredraw
10.4 Printing
Chapter 11
Introduction
11.1 Beams, Guides and Spots
11.2 Display size
11.3 Colours
11.4 Auto-save
11.5 Auto-check
11.6 Dynamics
11.7 Capturing rests
11.8 Sound notes
11.9 Saving your Preferences
Chapter 12
Introduction
12.1 Cursor movement keys
12.2 Selection keys
12.3 Action keys
12.4 Menu short cuts etc.
12.5 When entering text
Chapter 13
Introduction
13.1 Using MIDI
13.2 Entering notes and rests
13.3 Missing rests
13.4 Blank bars
13.5 Ties
13.6 Slurs and phrase marks
13.7 Bar lines and repeats
13.8 Capturing
13.9 Transcribing
Configuring !Rhapsody
Setting up a tone chart
RISCWorld
ÿÿÿÿISSUE5/SW2005/INDEX.HTM Issue 5, RISC OS SouthWest 2005
RISC OS SouthWest 2005
All the details on the next RISC OS show.
The RISC OS South West show will be going ahead on Saturday the 26th of February 2005 at its usual venue, the Webbington Hotel, Loxton, nr Ashbridge in North Somerset. This is the main RISC OS show for those that live in the west country, and is supported by two of the local RISC OS clubs, The Bristol Acorn Risc User Group and the Wessex Arm User Group.
The Webbington Hotel
Finding the Webbington
For those coming by train there will be a free minibus service from Western-Super-Mare station, for those coming by road consult the following map.
Times and exhibitors
The show opens at 10:00 in the morning and closes at 4:30, the admittance charge is a £3.50 for adults, £2.50 for Arm Club and RISC OS Foundation members, those who are under 16's can get in for free provided they are accompanied by an Adult.
A full list of exhibitors wasn't available when RISCworld went to press, but you can expect to see all the usual RISC OS names in evidence. The show should also feature the popular lecture theatre with talks from the RISC OS movers and shakers.
RISC World
ÿÿÿÿISSUE5/VA/INDEX.HTM Issue 5, VirtualAcorn
VirtualAcorn
What to do if things go wrong (part 2)
Last issue I looked at some common VirtualAcorn problems that have been experienced by customers, this time I want to take a look at some of the most obscure technical support problems. These have all been grade A head scratchers and in some cases have taken quite a bit of experimentation in order to find the cure. Often the cure seems to have little or no relation to the problem, which makes finding the answer even more difficult. Still lets have a look at a couple of the most difficult tech support problems we have had to deal with in the last few months.
Floppy driver problems
We have had one particularly awkward problem with the VirtualAcorn floppy driver recently. After installing the driver one customer's machine wouldn't reboot. Windows would start to load and get as far as the flash screen, then just sit there for ever. Booting into safe mode and removing our driver solved the problem, so what could be wrong?
I was quite convinced the fault wasn't actually our driver, otherwise we would have seen this fault before. Thousands of PCs are running the VirtualAcorn floppy driver and any inherent fault should have shown up by now. The floppy drive worked from Windows without any problem and was a standard IDE part connected to the computers motherboard. The VirtualAcorn driver would install without any problems and would come up with the normal WinXP logo compatibility warning. Having installed the driver it would show up in the Windows device manager, and VirtualAcorn would read floppy discs fine, until the PC was shut down. This one had me completely stumped, in the end I had to conclude that there was a driver/hardware clash somewhere but was unable to find it.
A few days later the customer e-mailed back to say they had found the fault, it was an iPod! If the iPod was connected to the PC when the VirtualAcorn floppy driver was installed, then the fault happened. If the iPod wasn't connected when the driver was installed then everything worked fine. The PC would reboot every time, VirtualAcorn could read discs, and the iPod worked fine. Quite what the connection is I don't know, I can only assume that with the iPod connected some extra drivers are loaded by Windows and these conflict with our driver. Without the iPod being connected there was no clash and our driver would install. I had no hope of solving this one myself, not least because I didn't even know the customer had an iPod.
This does raise one important point with tech support; if you, as a user, have a problem then you need to tell a tech support person about every bit of hardware you have connected to your computer, even the best made piece of kit could hold the key to solving the problem.
Failed to create primary surface
This is a nasty little error that crashes VirtualAcorn with no warning and usually only happens on laptops. Let me explain the symptoms. The user has VirtualAcorn running full screen and simply closes the laptop. At this point the machine will go into hibernate mode, so that when it's re-opened everything will re-start from where it was, so you shut down with RISC OS full screen, and when you re-open the machine RISC OS comes back full screen. Well that's the theory, what happened on one customer's machine was that after hibernating the computer would restart, then an error message "Failed to create primary surface" would come from VirtualAcorn, which would then exit without any warning.
This is a nasty little problem, but unlike the first example with the iPod I was able to get to the to the bottom of it quite quickly. The Primary Surface is the memory VirtualAcorn uses to render the RISC OS screen display. Something was interfering and preventing VirtualAcorn from grabbing the memory it needed. Since VirtualAcorn uses DirectX for this purpose it was a reasonable conclusion that another application was also trying to grab memory using DirectX at the same time.
The customer didn't have any games running on the laptop, so it couldn't be that. However they did have one other full screen application running as well, a screen saver. Most Windows screen savers also use DirectX. I asked the customer to disable the Windows screen saver and hey presto the problem was solved.
Disappearing directories
This is a real oddity that I never managed to get to the bottom of. One customer had a problem that they would "import" a set of directories containing files into VirtualAcorn. Once they had been imported VirtualAcorn could see the directories and read the files inside them. However if VirtualAcorn was quit and then re-loaded the directories would suddenly become unreadable. Windows could still see the directories and open them without any problem. I went through a number of test with the customer, making files and directories from inside VirtualAcorn, and all was fine, apart from the "imported" directories that continued to cause problems. In the end we both gave up as the problem just seemed to go away on its own!
Having just re-read the above section in my final editing it has just occurred to me that perhaps the "imported" directories had some weird file flags set under Windows which caused a problem, but that's just a guess.
Conclusion
The tech support queries above are all rather obscure and in most cases have only happened to one customer. However that doesn't mean that at some future point the problem might not happen again. Remember if you do need to contact VirtualAcorn then make sure you have your CD serial number handy, as without this it may not be possible to answer your query.
The Wakefield show 2005 is going ahead, RISCWorld has the details
The Wakefield RISCOS Computer Club have decided to go ahead with the Wakefield 2005 show. The show is scheduled for the weekend of the 21st and 22nd of May and just like last year will run over 2 days. This is the 10th year of the show and the ninth time the show has been held at Thornes Park Athletics Stadium in Wakefield.
There will once again be a FREE mini-bus service operating between Wakefield Westgate station and the show mainly connecting with the London trains, and as necessary to connect with other services. The Mini-Bus service is sponsored by APDL and 3QD(Virtual Acorn). Other show sponsors currently are M W Software, Stuart Tyrrell Developments/Advantage Six and Spellings Computer Services.
As usual there will be a show theatre, with a number of presentations on both Saturday and Sunday. Full details will be available when the program is confirmed.
The WROCC will be running the usual Charity Stall, once again raising money for Wakefield Hospice (www.wakefieldhospice.org). The show has raised over £12,000 for the hospice over the past 9 years. More details on what will be available on the charity stall will be announced nearer the time as the club are still hoping to be able to have some second hand computers on the stand, and any not sold will go for recycling, but this will be confirmed closer to the event.
Other features of the show include:
Small Developer area
Prize Dra
Free Car Parkin
Catering facilities (upstairs
Opening times will be:
Saturday 10 am till 5 p
Sunday 10:30 am till 3:30 p
Prices:
Advance Tickets ukp5 (available from mid March
On the day ukp
Under 6's FREE (MUST be accompanied by an Adult
Members of WROCC - free entrance on the Sunday
Please note that a tickets are valid for use on one day only (which day doesn't need to specified in advance when booking early).
Organisers
The show is once again being coordinated by Chris Hughes, who has organised all the previous Wakefield shows. The new 2005 show website will be available in late January 2005, and will be updated as things develop. Anyone interested in a stand at this years event can contact the organiser via email at
