Archive Magazine CD 1995/Archive Magazine CD 1995.iso/text/magazine/volume_04/issue_09

Text File | 1995-06-25 | 211KB | 4,794 lines

Is Archive a User Group?
4.9
Archive is not a user group, although we have always tried to keep that
“user group feel” by encouraging readers to contribute their own ideas,
articles, questions, small ads, contacts etc. We have also always tried
to remain independent, as far as that is possible for a commercial
enterprise. To this end, we have deliberately not got involved in
developing our own hardware and software products even though we have
the necessary knowledge and expertise to do so. This means that,
hopefully, you can trust the reviews to be reasonably impartial.
4.9
Blatant advertising?
4.9
Another thing we have avoided is taking up lots of pages of the magazine
advertising our own wares. However, we have found that many new
subscribers don’t know, for example, that we issue a monthly program
disc or that we have a huge PD software library, much of which is
dedicated to raising money for charity (over £30,000 in the last 2
years). They don’t realise that we do Archive magazine binders or that
we have asked a promotional company to make us some Archive mugs! (See
Products Available.) So we have taken up a half page advert to make
these things known. (Well, we are going to next month, but when I was
pasting up this issue, I forgot to leave space for it!)
4.9
Hard times ahead?
4.9
Many businesses are finding things difficult in the current economic
climate and Norwich Computer Services is not immune from these pres
sures. There is always the temptation is to drop your selling prices  in
order to attract business away from other companies who are selling the
same things. The trouble is that it means that other companies, to avoid
losing business, may have to drop their prices too. This sounds great
from the consumers’ point of view... but is it?
4.9
The problem is that if everyone cuts their margins, many Acorn-specific
companies will not be able to make enough money to live on and may be
forced into diversifying into other computers or giving up on Acorn all
together. (I personally would rather go back into full time F.E.
teaching than do that!) Also, those companies that do stick with Acorn
will not be able to afford to employ as many (or as competent) technical
back-up staff. All in all, this means less support for Acorn products
and that is not in the consumers’ best interests. For companies to
behave in this way is, I believe, both short-sighted and selfish.
4.9
Advertising Policy
4.9
We are, therefore, saying to companies wanting to quote cut-throat
prices in our magazine that we are no longer prepared to accept their
advertisements. We do not accept their argument that “So-and-so is doing
it, so I’m only matching his prices.” Our only slight worry is that we
may be accused of not being independent any more but we believe that
what we are doing is in the interests of the Acorn market as a whole, so
the decision stands. (In case you are wondering, we are not the only
magazine that places restrictions on its prospective advertisers!)
4.9
Very best wishes,
4.9

4.9

4.9
Products Available
4.9
•    3D Chess − MicroPower have now released their new chess program and
it’s in 3D. I don’t know how good a game it plays but the 3D display is
very impressive. £19.95 from MicroPower or £19 through Archive.
4.9
•    Animynd Life is a version of John Conway’s Mathematical game, Life. It
has a wide range of features allowing you, for example, to load and save
patterns, randomize, single step, set up various parameters etc. It
comes with a library of around 70 shapes, some of which are quite
fascinating to watch, and costs £20 from R.R. Thomas, 9 Oughtonhead Way,
Hitchin, Herts. SG5 2JZ.
4.9
•    Archimedes for the Anxious is a book by Alison Tyldesley published by
RESOURCE, price £4.95. It is a “very-beginners’ guide” to the Archimedes
“written in plain English” including explanations about using Draw and
PenDown.
4.9
•    Archive Mugs − We have just ordered some special pottery mugs for
Archive subscribers. They are from the same company that did the
promotional mugs for Acorn Computers and those who have seen the mugs
they produced for Acorn will know that they are good quality. The design
is basically the Archive logo from the front of the magazine in black
and reflex blue on a white mug. They cost £3 each + £1 p&p, or £10 for
four + £2 p&p.
4.9
•    ArcComm 2 is now available from Longman Logotron. This is a fully
RISC-OS compatible comms package costing £54 +VAT or £59 through
Archive. It supports a range of different modems, has many different
file transfer protocols and terminal types. It also has an extended
procedure language which makes it very easy to, say, automatically log
on to a bulletin board or to Telecom Gold and download mail and upload
messages or files. (I am using it myself and finding it very good. Peter
Gaunt, the author, is available on Arcade BBS, 081−654−2212, and was
very helpful in getting ArcComm 2 working with my slightly odd WS3000.
Ed)
4.9
•    Arcventure − is an archaeological expedition into Roman Times. It is a
simulation in which pupils take part in an archaeological dig with all
sorts of interesting ‘finds’ to be made. £29.95 from Sherston Software.
4.9
•    Boogie Buggy − Looks like a fascinating new game from 4th Dimension.
You have to navigate a bug-like creature around the screen in an effort
to neutralise the power of an evil monster lord without, yourself, being
damaged beyond repair. From the advertising blurb, the graphics look
good and it claims to be “the first quality game to use the entire
screen”. £24.95 from 4th Dimension or £23 through Archive.
4.9
•    Broadcast Loader − Educational Econet users will be pleased to hear
about Acorn’s new ‘Broadcast Loader’ which greatly reduces the time
taken for a class of pupils to receive the same file(s) which they
request from the fileserver. A site licence costs £69 +VAT from Acorn or
£75 through Archive. Acorn say it is “complementary to Acorn’s Econet
and Level-4 File Server” and that it is “independent of the type of
fileserver in use” and also that it is “compatible with Level-2, Level-3
and Nexus”.
4.9
•    Chocks Away ‘Extra Missions’ from 4th Dimension is now available at
£19.95 (or £19 through Archive). It provides you with 26 additional
missions to fly, 6 of which are reconnaissance missions.
4.9
•    Cross-32 Meta Assembler − Baildon Electronics have recently released,
under licence to Universal Cross Assemblers, Cross-32 which will allow
you to assemble programs from a wide range of microprocessors and micro-
controllers. It can be driven from RISC-OS or from the command line. The
rrp is £175 +VAT and it is available through Farnell Electronic
Components.
4.9
•    DrawAid is a utility costing just £10 from Carvic Manufacturing which
allows you to create Draw files of complex shapes that have repeating
patterns. It provides you with an environment which will allow you to
use BASIC to generate your patterns.
4.9
•    Guardians of the Labyrinth is a new maze-based adventure game − £3.49
from Soft Rock Software. It has ten user selectable mazes with the
ability to load and save your game position.
4.9
•    House of Numbers − an educational program with three levels of
difficulty aimed at children aged 6 to 13. It is centred around a maths
adventure/puzzle program. £22 +VAT from Chalksoft Ltd or £24 through
Archive.
4.9
•    I/O Box 3000 − Unilab have produced an interface box that plugs in the
back of the A3000 and provides three user ports, an analogue port and a
1 MHz bus. One of the user ports has been put on a connector with the
same number of pins as the printer port on the BBC Micro for backwards
compatibility with hardware designed to hang on a BBC. The cost is
£77.58 +VAT.
4.9
•    !MapIT claims to be the first Genesis II application. !MapIT, costing
£32 from HM Associates, analyses the IT requirements of the National
Curriculum. The National Curriculum identifies IT as a cross curricular
skill which must be delivered as an integral part of all ten statutory
subjects to all pupils aged from 5 to 16 and !MapIT enables you to
examine the contribution that IT can make to these ten subjects. !MapIT
uses, and is distributed with, the Genesis II browser so you do not need
to have Genesis II to use !MapIT.
4.9
•    PenDown Outline Fonts Disc − Longman Logotron have now released a disc
of outline fonts, ostensibly for use with PenDown but which can be used
with any application capable of dealing with outline fonts. There are 12
fonts − all what you might call fancy fonts − for £18 +VAT or £19
through Archive.
4.9
•    Removable SCSI Drives − The prices of the MR45 removable SCSI drives
have dropped even further! We’ve been able to take a further £40 off the
price bringing it down to £755 with an Oak SCSI podule and £555 without
(or £735 with a Lingenuity podule) and the spare 42M cartridges are now
down to £75 each. (We are now on top discount rate with the importers,
so apart from changes in the dollar exchange rate, the prices should now
be stable.)
4.9
•    Sellardore Tales − is an ‘easy read’ adventure game for slow learners,
priced £24 +VAT from Sherston Software. It covers National Curriculum
English AT2.
4.9
•    Shareware Nº40 − contains a simple card based database (ADFS only),
desktop ARM code disassembler, 256-level greyscale picture editor,
desktop optical character recognition, Blackjack for up to 4 players,
Connect4 (2 player or player vs computer), single player high/low card
game, horse racing game, sliding block puzzles, screen saver utility,
desktop Mandelbrot generator plus a number of utilities: set the access
status of files, file type guesser, simple calculator, various desktop
file utilities in one program, German key caps, desktop reset button,
extra desktop star commands, Fahrenheit <−> Celsius converter, desktop
volume control.
4.9
•    Training Courses − (I suppose you could say that these are “Products
Available”.) Acorn’s Training Centre is offering a new series of
training courses for applications programmers. The titles are,
“Programmers’ Introduction to C”, “Introduction to Application
Programming” and “Advanced RISC-OS Application Programming”. More
details from the Acorn Training Centre.
4.9
•    !X Terminal − Gnome Computers have produced software that will turn
your Archimedes into a terminal to any type of remote workstation
working under X 11. It supports TCP/IP over both Econet and Ethernet,
can provide support for up to eight independent X screens and includes
network security through DES encryption. !X costs £199 +VAT.
4.9
Review software received...
4.9
We have received review copies of the following software and hardware:
Archimedes for the Anxious, Animynd Life, ArcComm 2, ‘Children’s’
graphics library from Micro Studios, DrawAid, 3D Chess, Pendown Fonts
Disc, House of Numbers, Viewpoints and Arcventure from Sherston
Software.  A
4.9
STOP PRESS! − Careware Nº 13 is now available including DrawPlus (see
the review on page 19). See Price List for details.
4.9

4.9
Here are two sayings from the bible.  They are very short but very
profound....
4.9
Better a little with the fear of the Lord    than great wealth with
turmoil
4.9
Proverbs ch 15 v 16
4.9
In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
4.9
Colossians ch 2 v 3
4.9

4.9

4.9
Norwich Computer Services 96a Vauxhall Street, Norwich, NR2 2SD. 0603-
766592 (764011)
4.9

4.9
4th Dimension    P.O. Box 4444, Sheffield. (0742−700661)
4.9
4mation    Linden Lea, Rock Park, Barnstaple, Devon, EX32 9AQ.
(0271−25353) (−22974)
4.9
Abacus Training (p17)    29 Okus
Grove, Upper Stratton, Swindon, Wilts, SN2 6QA.
4.9
Acorn Computers Ltd    Fulbourn
Road, Cherry Hinton, Cambridge, CB1 4JN. (0223−245200) (−210685)
4.9
Acorn Training Centre    Unit 5,
Cambridge Technopark, 645 Newmarket Road, Cambridge CB5 8PB.
(0223−214411)
4.9
Atomwide Ltd (p4)    23 The Greenway, Orpington, Kent, BR5 2AY.
(0689−838852) (−896088)
4.9
Beebug Ltd    117 Hatfield Road, St Albans, Herts, AL1 4JS. (0727−40303)
(−60263)
4.9
Carvic Manufacturing    3 Shingay
Lane, Sawston, Cambridge CB2 4SS. (0223−834100)
4.9
Clares Micro Supplies    98 Mid
dlewich Road, Rudheath, Northwich, Cheshire, CW9 7DA. (0606−48511)
(−48512)
4.9
Chalksoft    P.O. Box 49, Spalding, Lincs, PE11 1NZ. (0775−769518)
4.9
Colton Software (p18)    149−151 St
Neots Road, Hardwick, Cambridge, CB3 7QJ. (0954−211472) (−211607)
4.9
Computer Concepts (p30/31)    Gaddesden
Place, Hemel Hempstead, Herts, HP2 6EX. (0442−63933) (−231632)
4.9
David Pilling    P.O.Box 22, Thornton Cleveleys, Blackpool, FY5 1LR.
4.9
Gnome Computers Ltd    25a
Huntingdon Street, St Neots, Cambridgeshire PE19 1BG. (0480−406164)
4.9
HM Associates     40 Hylton Road, Newton Hall, Durham DH1 5LS.
(091−384−1874)
4.9
Longman-Logotron    Dales Brewery, Gwydir Street, Cambridge, CB1 2LJ.
(0223−323656) (−460208)
4.9
MicroPower Ltd    Northwood House, North Street, Leeds LS7 2AA.
(0532−458800)
4.9
Midnight Graphics    5 Victoria Lane, Whitefield, Manchester, M25 6AL.
(061−766−8423) (−8425)
4.9
Minerva Systems    Minerva House, Baring Crescent, Exeter, EX1 1TL.
(0392−437756) (−421762)
4.9
Oak Solutions (p12)    Cross Park
House, Low Green, Rawdon, Leeds, LS19 6HA. (0532−502615) (−506868)
4.9
PEP Associates     55 St Paul’s Drive, Chatteris, Cambridge, PE16 6DG.
4.9
RESOURCE    Exeter Road, Doncaster, DN2 4PY. (0302−340331)
4.9
Sherston Software     Swan Barton,
Sherston, Malmesbury, Wilts. SN16 0LH. (0666−840433) (−840048)
4.9
Simtron Ltd     4 Clarence Drive, East Grinstead, W. Sussex, RH19 4RZ.
(0342−328188)
4.9
Soft Rock Software    124 Marissal
Road, Henbury, Bristol, BS10 7NP. (0272−503639 evenings)
4.9
Superior Software    Regent House, Skinner Lane, Leeds, LS7 1AX.
(0532−459453)
4.9
Unilab Ltd (p17)    The Science Park, Hutton Street, Blackburn BB1 3BT.
(0254−681222) (−681777)
4.9

4.9

4.9
Computer Concepts
4.9
New artwork
4.9

4.9
Computer Concepts
4.9
New artwork
4.9

4.9
- Includes MEMC1a upgrade
4.9
- Large capacity OS ROM sockets
4.9
- No soldering required
4.9
- Four layer printed circuit boards
4.9
- Courier collection of your machine
4.9
  2nd Mb - £225  4th Mb - £299
4.9

4.9
23 The Greenway  Orpington  Kent  BR5 2AY  Tel [phone]  Fax 0689
896088
4.9

4.9
The Complete Upgrade Solution
4.9

4.9
- Uses only eight RAM devices
4.9
- User upgradeable from 1 to 4 Mb
4.9
- Four layer printed circuit board
4.9
- Low power consumption
4.9
- Available without RAM devices
4.9
  Bare card - £35  2nd Mb - £56  4th Mb - £159
4.9

4.9
- New series Aleph One ARM3
4.9
- 3 to 4 times performance increase
4.9
- Surface mount technology
4.9
- Four layer printed circuit board
4.9
- Courier collection of your machine
4.9
  ARM 3 upgrade - £399
4.9

4.9
- Uses only eight RAM devices
4.9
- Suitable for A440, A400/1 & R140
4.9
- Fully RISC OS compatible
4.9
- Four layer printed circuit boards
4.9
- Courier collection of your machine
4.9
  8 Mb upgrade - £749
4.9

4.9
- Increases resolution with all Multiscan monitors
4.9
- Doubles desktop work area
4.9
- Custom modes for Taxan and Eizo monitors
4.9
- Suitable for all Archimedes computers
4.9
- Free with any multiscan monitor from Atomwide
4.9
  Atomwide VIDC Enhancer - £29
4.9

4.9
- All products are cross-compatible
4.9
- Combination deals available on all products
4.9
- Typical combination A310 4 Mb and ARM3 £675
4.9
- Dealer enquires welcome
4.9
- Phone for full details on all products
4.9
  All prices exclude VAT at 17.5% but include delivery
4.9

4.9
- 400 series RAM upgrade kits
4.9
- Supplied with full fitting instructions
4.9
- 410/1 to 420/1 requires 1Mb
4.9
- 420/1 to 440/1 requires 2Mb
4.9
- 410/1 to 440/1 requires 3Mb
4.9
  1Mb - £35  2Mb - £65  3Mb - £99
4.9

4.9
- Syquest removable disk systems
4.9
- Including One cartridge, drive unit and all cables
4.9
- 42Mb removable cartridges
4.9
- High-flow fan fitted for improved cooling
4.9
- Please phone for prices on other SCSI related products
4.9
  Atomwide Syquest drive unit - £470  42Mb disks - £64
4.9

4.9
Hints and Tips
4.9
•    Beware spaces − There is a problem with spaces at the end of OS
variables:
4.9
If you include in a !Run file code such as the following:
4.9
Set ThisApp$Dir <Obey$Dir>
4.9
Run <ThisApp$Dir>.!RunImage
4.9
then beware that you don’t include a space at the end of the first line!
If you do, the space will be included in the definition of ThisApp$Dir
and the second line will cause a “Bad File Name” error. Hugh Eagle.
4.9
•    PC emulator with an ARM3 − The default boot-up process for the ARM3
performs an RMClear command, killing all RAM resident modules including,
in particular, the module that drives the ARM3. So, in order, to get the
PC emulator to take advantage of the ARM3‘s extra speed you need to
alter the line in !PC.Genboot.!Config immediately after the one that
reads “Perform RMClear?” from “Y” to “N”! (Thanks to Martin Coulson of
Atomwide for this advice.) Hugh Eagle
4.9
•    Printer tips − You can alter the halftone density by editing the
PrData file within your printer driver (see Archive 4.6 for an example
of how to find this). For instance, PrinterLJ has lines such as:
4.9
pxres_halftone:300/8
4.9
pyres_halftone:300/8
4.9
so each halftone dot is actually formed of a matrix of 8x8 dots, giving
a halftone density of 300/8=37.5 dpi. This gives a very coarse effect
but can produce 65 different grey levels. Altering the lines to:
4.9
pxres_halftone:300/6
4.9
pyres_halftone:300/6
4.9
gives “only” 37 grey levels and a dot pitch of 50 dpi. Experiment to see
what suits your printer best.
4.9
A word of caution. I used !Draw to produce some PCB artwork, printed it
out using !PrinterLJ on a DeskJet Plus and sent it off... Disaster! The
size was OK across the width but was 1.5% too small along the length of
the paper, as was discovered when the finished circuit boards came back.
I’d previously had no trouble using an Epson-compatible printer, so it
may be something to do with the friction feed on the HP slipping, or
perhaps a slightly thicker paper would have helped. Anyway, if your hard
copy must be accurate, then check it! Jonathan Oakley, Cambridge.
4.9
•    Printing * command output − Ever since I got my LaserDirect I have
been laboriously printing the results of *Status, *Dump, etc. by
directing the output to a file and then printing the file (while
bemoaning the loss of the <Ctrl-B>, etc. facility à la BBC). However, I
have just realised that it is easier (and much more in keeping with
Acorn’s RISC-OS standards, I am sure) to open a Task Window in !Edit,
enter the * command (which puts its output in the window) and then print
the contents of the window by “saving” to the printer driver icon. In
other words, click <menu> on the !Edit icon on the icon bar and use
Create − New Task window. This presents you with a new window with a *
ready for a command. Type in the command whose output you want listing,
say, *STATUS. When the listing has finished, click on the window with
<menu> and go Edit − Save and drop the text file produced onto your
printer icon. Easy! (Then close the window, answering ‘Yes’ to ‘Kill and
close’.) Hugh Eagle
4.9
•    Printing via a RISC-OS printer driver from a BASIC program − Have you
ever wondered why your computer has a button called “Print” that doesn’t
seem to do anything of the sort?
4.9
At last, applications seem to be appearing that recognise that pressing
the <Print> key is rather an intuitive way of printing (Impression and
Poster are two examples). Also, I have discovered that RISC-OS printer
drivers are not nearly as fearsome as the PRM makes them seem and it is
actually quite easy to incorporate into your own program’s printing
routines which are activated by ... wait for it ... the <Print> key.
Amazing!
4.9
Take the Painting application from the original Arthurian Welcome disc,
for instance. We still use this in my family because it is so simple,
but it has always (incredibly) lacked a printing facility. To rectify
this, proceed as follows:
4.9
Put this line near the beginning of the program (e.g. immediately after
PROCdesktop (at about line 200):
4.9
 PROCPrintSetup(110000)
4.9
Note: 110,000 bytes is big enough to allow the program to run in mode
20. 55,000 would be enough for mode 12.
4.9
Put this line in the WimpPoll loop (e.g. immediately after the ENDCASE
statement at around line 400):
4.9
IF INKEY-33 THEN PROCPrint(162,232,1274,972)
4.9
Note: INKEY-33 is the crucial function that recognises whether the
<Print> key is being pressed.
4.9
Finally, put these procedures at the end of the program:
4.9
DEF PROCPrintSetup(SpriteAreaSize%)
4.9
DIM SpriteArea% SpriteAreaSize%
4.9
!SpriteArea%=SpriteAreaSize%
4.9
SpriteArea%!8=16
4.9
SYS “OS_SpriteOp”,9+256,SpriteArea%
4.9
ENDPROC
4.9

4.9
DEF PROCPrint(X1%,Y1%,X2%,Y2%)
4.9
SYS “Hourglass_On”
4.9
PrintHandle%=OPENOUT(“printer:”)
4.9
SYS “PDriver_SelectJob”,PrintHandle% ,0 TO Old%
4.9
ON ERROR LOCAL PROCPrintError
4.9

4.9
MOVE X1%,Y1%:MOVE X2%,Y2%
4.9
SYS “OS_SpriteOp”,14+256, SpriteArea%,“TempSprite”,1 : REM Get sprite
4.9

4.9
DIM RectBlock% 15,Transform% 15,PrintPosition% 7
4.9
RectID%=1
4.9
BackCol%=&FFFFFF00:REM set background colour to white
4.9

4.9
REM X1%, Y1%, etc. are the screen coordinates of the area
4.9
to be printed
4.9
!RectBlock%=X1%:RectBlock%!4=Y1%
4.9
RectBlock%!8=X2%:RectBlock%!12=Y2%
4.9

4.9
REM No scaling or rotation required
4.9
!Transform%=&10000:Transform%!4=0
4.9
Transform%!8=0:Transform%!12=&10000
4.9

4.9
REM Put the bottom LH corner 1.5“ REM from the left AND 5” from the
4.9
REM bottom of the page
4.9
!PrintPosition%=1.5*72000
4.9
PrintPosition%!4=5*72000
4.9

4.9
SYS “PDriver_GiveRectangle”,RectID%, RectBlock%,Transform%,
PrintPosition%,BackCol%
4.9
SYS “PDriver_DrawPage”,1,RectBlock%, 0,0 TO More%,,RectID%
4.9
WHILE More%
4.9
  SYS “OS_SpriteOp”,34+256
4.9
,SpriteArea%,“TempSprite”
4.9
,X1%,Y1%,0
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  SYS “PDriver_GetRectangle”,, RectBlock% TO More%,,RectID%
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ENDWHILE
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SYS “PDriver_EndJob”,PrintHandle%
4.9
SYS “Hourglass_Smash”
4.9
CLOSE#(PrintHandle%)
4.9
ENDPROC
4.9

4.9
DEF PROCPrintError
4.9
SYS “PDriver_Abort”,PrintHandle%
4.9
SYS “Hourglass_Smash”
4.9
CLOSE#(PrintHandle%)
4.9
ENDPROC
4.9
Hugh Eagle
4.9
•    Running one application from inside another If you’ve ever been
puzzled by odd behaviour when you try to run one application from inside
another, the following advice from Mark Neves of Computer Concepts’
Technical Support Department may help.
4.9
My particular problem arose when I tried to make sure that a printer
driver was loaded by running !PrinterXX from within application A’s !Run
file. The result was that application A failed to run and when I quit
!PrinterXX, an error was reported.
4.9
The answer is that when you run a “sibling task” from another appli
cation’s run file the sibling “takes over the current environment” until
it terminates and only then does it return control to the parent task
(in a manner analogous to a subroutine call).
4.9
The solution is to use the command
4.9
* Desktop <sibling task name>
4.9
rather than *Run.  Hugh Eagle
4.9
•    “Saving” data from one application to another − (This is another of
those “obvious to those who know it” hints.) If you want to transfer
data (e.g. text or a sprite or a drawn object) from one RISC-OS
application to another you don’t have to save it on a disc from
application A and then load it into application B; all you have to do is
drag the icon from application A’s “Save” box (i.e. the window that
appears when you choose a Save menu option) into application B’s window.
4.9
This works with all well behaved (“RISC-OS compliant”) applications,
e.g. !Edit, !Draw, Impression, !Paint, !Poster, etc. and generally works
for either the whole contents of a window or for selected items. Hugh
Eagle
4.9
•    Sprite plotting and colour translation − The ColourTrans section of
the PRM (pages 1399 to 1424) includes references to a number of SWI’s
(including, in particular, ColourTrans_SelectTable) which have to be
called with R1 pointing to the “source palette”. Since, according to PRM
pages 390−391, a sprite’s palette data starts 44 bytes after the
beginning of the sprite, it seems clear that, in order to translate a
sprite’s palette you simply call the ColourTrans SWI with
SpritePointer%+44 in R1, doesn’t it? Wrong!!!
4.9
In fact, the palette data in a sprite appears to include 8 bytes for
each colour with the second 4 bytes duplicating the first 4 (does anyone
know why this is?) whereas ColourTrans expects only 4 bytes per colour.
4.9
So, before you can translate a sprite’s colours, you need to include
some code on the following lines:−
4.9
PaletteLength%=SpritePointer%!32−44
4.9
IF PaletteLength%=0 THEN
4.9
 PalettePointer%=0
4.9
ELSE
4.9
 FOR I%=0 TO PaletteLength%-8 STEP 8
4.9
  Palette%!(I%/2) = SpritePointer%!(I%+44)
4.9
 NEXT
4.9
 PalettePointer%=Palette%
4.9
ENDIF
4.9
Note: The palette data, if any, starts 44 bytes after the beginning of
the sprite. SpritePointer%!32 contains the number of bytes from the
beginning of the sprite to the start of the actual sprite pixel data. If
this equals 44, there is no palette.
4.9
The point of setting PalettePointer% to 0 if there is no palette data,
is that if the sprite has no palette then, in many cases, (especially if
the sprite is defined in a 256 colour mode) it makes sense to call
ColourTrans with R1 set to 0 since ColourTrans will then translate the
default palette for the sprite’s mode. However ...
4.9
•    Strange sprite colours − Ever since RISC-OS arrived, I’ve been puzzled
by the odd colours which have appeared when some sprites have been
plotted by various applications (including Impression, no less). I think
that, at last, I’m beginning to understand why. Consider the following
curious state of affairs:
4.9
Palette details are an optional part of the sprite data format. A lot of
sprites are created by !Paint. !Paint, by default, creates sprites
without a palette (presumably on the assumption that, having been
designed in the Desktop colour scheme, they will be used on the
Desktop.)
4.9
The PRM (page 1278) recommends that you should use the ColourTrans
module for best results when plotting or printing a sprite. However,
although ColourTrans knows how to translate from any given palette and
from the default palette for any mode, it doesn’t seem to be equipped
with any means of translating the standard desktop palette of a mode
other than the current one.
4.9
Therefore, the best that applications can do when faced with a palette-
less sprite is to tell ColourTrans to assume that the sprite was defined
in the default palette for its mode. The trouble with this is that it is
about the worst possible thing that can be done with a sprite defined to
be used on the Desktop since, for instance, colour 0 which is intended
to be white, will be translated by ColourTrans, working from the default
palette, into black! For example, even Impression reverses the colours
of its standard document icon.
4.9
So, what’s to be done? As far as I can tell:
4.9
The best advice is to make sure that every sprite has a palette. If this
isn’t possible then, for plotting sprites on the Desktop, use
Wimp_ReadPixTrans if a sprite doesn’t have a palette (this is the
routine that the Wimp manager uses for plotting sprites as icons and
seems to produce quite acceptable results on the whole) and save
ColourTrans calls for sprites that do have palettes. For example, follow
the above palette conversion routine with code something like this:
4.9
SYS “ColourTrans_SelectTable”,Mode%, PalettePointer%,-1,-1,ColTable%
4.9
IF PaletteLength%<>0 THEN
4.9
  SYS “OS_SpriteOp”,52+512,Sprites% ,SpritePointer%,200,200,
Mask%*8,Scale%,ColTable%
4.9
ELSE
4.9
  IF NumberOfColoursInSprite%<63 THEN SYS “Wimp_ReadPixTrans”, 512,
Sprites%,SpritePointer% ,,,,,ColTable%
4.9
  SYS “OS_SpriteOp”,52+512,Sprites%, SpritePointer%,200,200,
4.9
Mask%*8,Scale%,ColTable%
4.9
ENDIF
4.9
If you’re plotting to a printer, “Wimp_ReadPixTrans” doesn’t help and I
don’t think there is any straightforward, foolproof method. (It would be
possible, I think, to create a block of palette data with the RGB values
for the colours of the Desktop palette in the relevant mode and then
feed this into ColourTrans, but this would be a rather tedious process.)
Hugh Eagle
4.9
Impression Hints and Tips
4.9
•    Adding fonts by using search & replace − As a mathematics and physics
teacher, I use a lot of Greek letters and it is rather bothersome to
have to work through all those menus to reach the effect “Greek” every
time. Therefore, I use search & replace in a way which (at least in the
Impression Junior handbook) is not documented:
4.9
I type the text, using the Latin equivalents of the Greek letters (“g-
Quant” instead of “g-Quant”) then, when I have finished the text, I use
the following:
4.9
    Find: g-Quant
4.9
    Replace: g-Quant
4.9
Impression does the rest. (Many thanks to Computer Concepts for the
information!)
4.9
By the way, if you wish to find out how all the other effects are saved
in an Impression document, there is an easy way to find out: Just take a
document with lots of effects and save only the text story (“with
effects”). If you then drag the icon of the saved text story onto the
!Edit icon, the text will appear with all the effects in plain language.
 Jochen Konietzko, Koeln, Germany
4.9
(Wouldn’t it be easier to use <ctrl-F6> and edit the “Greek” style, go
down to the bottom where it says “Key short-cut”, click in the box and
press, say, <ctrl-shift-F9>, then OK it? Then when you want, say, “g-
Quant”, you type “<ctrl-shift-F9>g<ctrl-shift-F9>-Quant”.... Oh, I see,
Impression Junior doesn’t have styles. Oh well, nice try!)
4.9
•    Cutting invisible text − If you have more text in a frame than will
fit, you get the little red arrow which indicates that some of the text
is invisible. You could obviously create a new frame, click on the over-
full frame and then click <adjust> on the new frame but there may still
be too much for that frame. So, is there any way of marking the
invisible text so that you can cut it or copy it? The answer is that you
simply use <ctrl-down> to move the cursor to the (invisible) bottom of
the text the click <adjust> to indicate the upper limit of the area to
be marked. Ed.
4.9
•    Handy hint − If you use the ‘hand’ to move up or down through a long
document, you are not limited in your movements to the visible page. In
other words, if you keep moving the mouse up and up (by repeatedly
lifting the mouse off the table) or down and down, you just keep moving
through the document in the desired direction. (This is particularly
useful if you are a trackerball user!) Ed.
4.9
•    Importing text files into Impression − In the new version of Impres
sion which CC have just sent me (version 2.11), I have discovered an
exciting new concept in the Archimedes world − “the Return Stripper”!!
4.9
In the Extensions directory is a new loader module called “LoadReturn”
which at last seems to deal satisfactorily with the importing of text
files. Using this, I no longer have to load the file into !Edit then
change linefeeds into carriage returns before importing. Nor do I have
to suffer fixed line lengths in the imported text.
4.9
However, I do have two quibbles (some people are never satisfied!):
4.9
Double carriage returns are reduced to single returns, so spaces between
paragraphs are eliminated (unless you change the style so that it leaves
such a space − which I think is good practice. Ed). I feel it would be
helpful to be able to set a “preference” to decide whether or not double
returns are preserved.
4.9
Importing a text file now involves a somewhat tiresome sequence of
message windows whereby I am asked to accept or reject each of the
available loader modules in turn. I feel it would be helpful to be able
to use the “preference” facility either to define which loader is used
for which filetype or, at the very least, to determine the order in
which the various loader options are offered to me. Hugh Eagle.
4.9
(All I did was to put the LoadReturn extension into the Auto directory
in the Impression directory and now when I want files stripping, I use
!Settype (Shareware 19 or 23) to change them to Acorn data file type
(&FFD) and they are stripped automatically. Ed.)
4.9
•    Labels & Tickets − Another way of doing tickets and labels is to
define a new master page which is the right size for what you want to
create (pretty radical, eh?). “Fit lots” still works, giving you
multiple tickets per sheet, but you’re not restricted to 1% size
increments which can cause you to miss the boundaries on sticky labels,
especially where there are three or four across the page width.
(Brilliant! Why didn’t I think of that? Ed. − see below.)
4.9
A similar technique works for cassette inlays. One way is to define a
single master page 101mm deep and 288mm wide, divided into columns of
16, 12, 65, 65, 65 and 65mm; this format will fit two inlays to an A4
page (assuming zero border width, which will vary between printers), but
you need to fiddle around with !FontDraw and !Draw (Or use Draw1½ − see
below. Ed) to get text on the spine of the cassette. Starting with a
page 288mm deep and 101mm wide gives you the spine text a sensible way
round, but the four “body” pages are then landscape, which you may not
want.
4.9
Another way is to split the inlay into two chapters; the spine has a
101mm wide, 28mm high master page, and the body pages are 65mm by 101mm,
or vice versa if you want landscape. Then you need to do a bit of
cutting and pasting by hand, as Impression won’t print individual pages
sideways. This is the technique I ended up by using, printing at 141%
then reducing the pasted-up result from two up on A3 back down by 70% to
A4, thus enhancing the graphics halftones from 37.5 dpi to 53.6 dpi.
I’ve included an example ... (Which we have put on the Monthly Program
Disc. Ed) Jonathan Oakley, Cambridge.
4.9
•    Labels & tickets − Ed’s version − I have played a bit with Jonathan’s
ideas and developed them a little. I tried to create some labels (like
the ones on our Shareware Discs etc which come as 24 to an A4 page) and
found that his method worked very well. I created a master page that was
70mm x 37.125mm (which is 210mm divided by 3 horizontally and 297mm
divided by 8 vertically). I set a border 3mm wide on all four sides
because the Laser Direct HiRes can print up to about 2.5mm of the edge
of the page and I wanted to have a simple line border around my labels.
I put all my text on the master page including a page number so that I
could have a serial number on the labels. I then closed the master page
and created another 23 pages for my document by using <menu> Edit −
Insert new page. I clicked 22 times with <adjust> so that the menu
stayed on screen and once with <select>. I then pressed <print> and
clicked on “Fit lots” and then “Setup...” and then “Ignore page border”.
The printout which appeared was almost right but was 1mm too far to the
right, 1mm too low at the top and the last label was even lower. (Thinks
hard.... tries various things and then....) The printout was slightly
too long so I created a slightly shorter master page − 70mm x 37.11mm. I
tried to see if there was any adjustment on the laser printer but
couldn’t find any so I went to the (new, shorter) master page, clicked
on the frame and pressed <ctrl-F10> to alter the frame. In the position
section, I simply increased X from 5 to 6 and reduced Y from 5 to 4 in
order to move the text on the page 1 mm right and 1 mm up. Bingo! Every
border on every label was almost exactly 5mm.
4.9
I also had a quick try with Jonathan’s cassette inlay printing and it is
really very easy with his first method − I cheated though by using
Draw1½ (Shareware 34). For the spine, all you do is create a new Draw1½
document, type in the text you want, change it to whatever font you are
using, press <menu> − Special − Text to path and then <menu> − Save −
Selection and drop the Draw file produced into the relevant graphics
frame in your Impression document. Then use <adjust> to drag the picture
round until it is near enough at right angles to the rest of the text
(having decided which way you want it to face) and finally press <ctrl-
F11> (Alter graphic) and set the Angle to exactly 90° or 270°. (If you
can remember which way round 90° or 270° puts it, then there’s no need
to swing it round with <adjust>.) Here is a bit of text that I have just
inserted. It must have taken me all of 45 seconds to create the frame,
type in the text, convert it and add it in! (Software to enable me to do
that on the Mac cost me hundreds of pounds a couple of years ago!)
4.9
•    “Running” an Impression document − In Alan Highet’s review of !Menon
on Shareware 38 (Archive 4.8 page 48) he mentions that it did not work
well with Impression documents since an attempt to “run” one of these
caused a second copy of Impression to appear on the icon bar.
4.9
I have observed a similar phenomenon in trying to create a front-end for
Impression which, amongst other things, opens a template document chosen
by the user. Simply *Running the document results in the loading of a
new copy of Impression regardless of whether one is already running.
4.9
So, why is it that double-clicking on an Impression document in a Filer
window will load it into an existing copy of Impression whereas
“running” it doesn’t?
4.9
Mark Neves of Computer Concepts’ Technical Support Department has kindly
explained why this happens and has pointed to a solution.
4.9
The reason is that what happens when you double click on an icon in a
Filer window is not simply that the document is “run”. First, the Filer
broadcasts a Message_DataOpen message inviting other applications to
open the document, and only if this message is returned unacknowledged
does it instigate a *Run.
4.9
The solution is a fairly simple program on the following lines:
4.9
REM >!RunImage
4.9
TaskName$=“RunImpDoc”
4.9
:
4.9
PROCSetUpWimp
4.9
DocToOpen$=FNReadOSVarVal
4.9
(“Doc$ToOpen”)
4.9
PROCPollLoop
4.9
SYS “Wimp_CloseDown”,Taskid% ,&4B534154
4.9
IF NotAcknowledged% THEN OSCLI(“Run ”+DocToOpen$)
4.9
END
4.9
:
4.9
DEF PROCPollLoop
4.9
LOCAL mask%,quit%
4.9
NotAcknowledged%=FALSE
4.9
PROCSendDataOpenMessage
4.9
mask%=0
4.9
quit%=FALSE
4.9
REPEAT
4.9
SYS “Wimp_Poll”,mask%,block% TO reason%
4.9
CASE reason% OF
4.9
WHEN 17,18 : IF block%!16=4 THEN quit%=TRUE
4.9
 REM Another task (presumably
4.9
 REM Impression) has acknowledged
4.9
 REM our request to load a file.
4.9
WHEN 19  : NotAcknowledged%=TRUE:quit%=TRUE
4.9
 REM Our request has not been acknowledged.
4.9
ENDCASE
4.9
UNTIL quit%
4.9
ENDPROC
4.9
:
4.9
DEF PROCSendDataOpenMessage
4.9
!block%=256
4.9
block%!12=0:block%!16=5:block%!20=0
4.9
block%!28=0:block%!32=0:block%!36=0
4.9
block%!40=&2000
4.9
$(block%+44)=DocToOpen$
4.9
?(block%+44+LEN(DocToOpen$))=0
4.9
SYS “Wimp_SendMessage”,18,block%,0
4.9
ENDPROC
4.9
:
4.9
DEF PROCSetUpWimp
4.9
DIM block% &1000,errblk% 256
4.9
REM Taskid%=FNWimpInit(200,TaskName$)
4.9
SYS “Wimp_Initialise”,200, &4B534154,TaskName$ TO Version%,Taskid%
4.9
ON ERROR PROCError(TaskName$)
4.9
ENDPROC
4.9
:
4.9
DEF FNReadOSVarVal(varname$)
4.9
LOCAL temp1%,temp2%,length%
4.9
DIM temp1% 100,temp2% 100
4.9
$temp2%=varname$
4.9
SYS “OS_ReadVarVal”,temp2%,temp1%, 100,0,3 TO ,,length%
4.9
temp1%?length%=13
4.9
var$=$temp1%
4.9
=var$
4.9
:
4.9
DEF PROCError(TaskName$)
4.9
!errblk%=ERR
4.9
$(errblk%+4)=REPORT$+“ at line ”+ STR$ERL
4.9
errblk%?(4+LEN$(errblk%+4))=0
4.9
SYS “Wimp_ReportError”,errblk%,1, TaskName$
4.9
SYS “Wimp_CloseDown”,Taskid%, &4B534154:END
4.9
ENDPROC
4.9
To use this program, simply set up the OS variable Doc$ToOpen with the
full pathname of the document and run the program. Hugh Eagle
4.9
•    Setting a style in an Impression frame − Question: how do I set up a
blank frame containing a predetermined style (for instance, to hold the
address of the person I am writing to, where I would like to use a
different font from the one in the body of the letter)? If I put the
cursor in the frame, then apply the style, then move the cursor
elsewhere (or save and reload the document) before bringing it back to
the address frame, and then start typing, the text comes up in the
Basestyle.
4.9
Answer: If after applying the style, I type anything (for instance a
couple of carriage returns) in the address frame then the applied style
seems to be remembered and the address frame works as intended.
4.9
Caution: if I delete the entire contents of the frame the applied style
is deleted too. So, if I want to blank the frame for reuse I have to
remember to leave a carriage return or two to preserve the style. Hugh
Eagle.
4.9
•    Typesetting − We said we would try to find companies willing to do
typesetting from Impression output. Here are two that we have found. If
you discover others, ask them to send us details of their services and
we will publish them. We are particularly interested in those that will
take Impression files as such rather than PostScript files on MS-DOS
discs.
4.9
The Type Station in Cardiff offers a full bureau service for bromide or
film. You create PostScript files and either send them by post on an MS-
DOS disc or send them c/o BT using a modem. For details, contact Elgan
Davis on 0222−229977.
4.9
Focus Print in Aberdeen can do bromides (PMT’s) from your Impression
files. Phone Alexander Bisset on 0224−592571 ext 211 (or 0224−593956
evenings).  A
4.9

4.9

4.9
Oak
4.9
From 4.8 page 15
4.9

4.9
Comment Column
4.9
•    Archway − I have recently received, from Simtron, a copy of their free
demo disc for Archway. It’s an excellent demo which seems to give a good
idea of the kind of results Archway can produce and, more importantly,
how you use it. It is well worth a look for those who are interested in
writing Wimp applications but have not yet got to grips with all the
intricacies of the Window Manager. Hugh Eagle, Horsham.
4.9
•    Equasor Update − Brian Cowan’s review of Equasor in Archive 4.6 did
not mention the important Design/Apply feature, probably because he had
a pre-production version.
4.9
Equasor can routinely produce expressions with super- and subscripts to
the East such as   However, the Design/Apply feature allows you design
custom subscript positions (up to two per symbol) in any of 8 positions:
N, S, E, W, NE, SE, NW and SW. Also, the N and S scripts can be centred
over the variable or aligned left or right, and the three E and three W
scripts can be spaced out horizontally from the symbol, and similarly
the three N ones can be leaded (raised or lowered) by an amount you can
set, applicable to the whole Equasor “document”.
4.9
The new structure can then be applied to a symbol and different
structures designed and applied elsewhere. Here are some examples:
4.9
The first 3 atoms were designed using the Design/Apply feature, the
fourth by a combination of that on the “H” and the routine subscript
feature on the “e” plus a little kerning of the “2+”. I like Equaser
very much, but my version (1.02) does have a few minor bugs. Steve
Kirkby
4.9
•    LaserDirect Hi-Res (Canon LBP4) − I hope you will publish the
following comments to encourage anyone who may be wavering about whether
to buy a LaserDirect printer. (I wavered far too long!)
4.9
Use with RISC-OS drivers − Absolute simplicity. It gives wonderful
results (both with text and graphics, especially Drawfiles). It brings
Impression to life and we can now actually see the differences between
the various fonts! A joy to use.
4.9
Use with programs that don’t cooperate with RISC-OS drivers − I was
quite concerned about how difficult it would be to use with programs
such as First Word Plus or Lotus 123 on the PC Emulator. In practice, I
have found it surprisingly straightforward:
4.9
(i) The LBP4 printer can be plugged permanently into both the Laser
Direct card and the parallel port and can be switched between the 2
interfaces just by pressing a few buttons on the control panel.
4.9
(ii) With the help of the driver supplied on Careware 12, text printing
from First Word Plus via the parallel port is totally straightforward.
(Having said that, the question of using First Word Plus has proved
academic because we have all rapidly become convinced of the advantages
of Impression!)
4.9
(iii) Basic text printing from Lotus 123 and any “VDU2” (or <Ctrl>B)
style printing (e.g. printing the output from a * command such as *DUMP
or *STATUS) is also straightforward. The printer can easily be switched
via the control panel between standard and “line printer” mode (i.e. 160
characters by 8 lines per inch) in either portrait or landscape
orientation. Software control (via escape sequences) is doubtless
possible but you need to buy extra programmer’s manuals to get all the
necessary details.
4.9
(iv) While it is possible to use the parallel interface in this way, it
is actually almost as easy to print to a file and then print that file
through the LaserDirect RISC-OS driver (or via Impression for all the
extra control over layout that it gives.)
4.9
Noise − After reading some comments, I had imagined my study sounding
like an aircraft hangar with the printer’s fan competing with the
computer’s for attention. In fact, the printer is scarcely audible most
of the time and even when it is printing it is quieter than the
computer.
4.9
Hugh Eagle, Horsham.
4.9
•    Public key cryptography − A review of “The Public Key”, (a magazine
specializing in public key cryptography) appeared in Archive 4.5 page
57. Issue 2 of this magazine is now available from: George H. Foot,
Waterfall, Uvedale Road, Oxted, Surrey RH8 0EW. A nominal charge of
£1.50 (EEC countries £2.50: Overseas air mail £3.50) is made to recover
expenses in part − cheques payable to G.H. Foot.
4.9
New readers will require Issue 1 of the magazine and the disc containing
the cryptographic program in addition to Issue 2. (Inclusive charge:
£5.00, EEC countries £6, Overseas £7).
4.9
Alternatively, write to the above address for a free descriptive
leaflet.
4.9
The magazine is produced as a hobby interest of the editors and is not a
commercial venture.
4.9
The unique merit of public key cryptography is that it is a universal
system allowing anyone to communicate securely with any other person
without a requirement for any previous contact between them and without
any necessity for a preliminary exchange of codes.
4.9
The program in the magazine will encrypt messages (including graphics)
for onward transmission and decrypt messages which have been received,
all in a very simple fashion.
4.9
Public key cryptography is an interesting application for the Archimedes
computer which will have a fascination for many people and serve a
useful purpose for others.
4.9
The underlying principles are described for anyone wishing to make a
closer study of the subject but no special knowledge is required for the
operation of the program.  mmm mmmmmm
4.9
 •    Schema − Clares replies to the criticisms of Schema in Archive 4.8
p18...
4.9
a. The version of Schema to be released soon, does have the ^ operator.
Existing users will be receiving upgrades.
4.9
b. Only the more common operations are provided on the function keys.
Inserting and deleting rows and columns is generally only needed if you
make a mistake in the design of your sheet. If you do, the facility is
there to correct the error.
4.9
c. Schema is an extremely powerful package and far from having too many
menus, it is remarkable that it manages to deliver so much power with so
few menu options to remember.
4.9
d. Inserting a column to the left of Column A is only going to be
necessary if you have set up a badly designed sheet. If you do make such
an error, the program allows you to rectify it in the way described. It
is better to do things this way than to add an extra menu option to cope
with a rare situation.
4.9
e. VAT, NAME and ARCHIVE for example, could be strings or user names or
macros hence the use of quotes to distinguish them.
4.9
f. The article talks about a scratchpad. There is no scratchpad in
Schema. I think the writer means the entry window. This is a window
which displays the contents of the current cell and allows you to edit
them. Since the contents of this cell are displayed, naturally, before
you can edit data in a cell you have to make that cell the current cell.
Once you have clicked into the edit window, you edit your data exactly
as in any other editing window in any other RISC-OS application. The
mouse and the cursor keys act exactly as you would expect.
4.9
D Jackson, Clares
4.9
We have had quite a number of letters about Schema expressing a range of
views both positive and negative although the balance is on the negative
side. However, it seems clear that Colin Ross Malone Ltd, who are doing
the programming, are committed to clearing up all the bugs and imple
menting as many as possible of the facilities which people are
requesting. (See also the comparisons between Schema, PipeDream and
Logistix on page 27.)
4.9
• Tracer − Midnight Graphics gave one of our subscribers a copy of
Tracer for review. Eventually, he returned it saying he couldn’t get it
to do what he wanted it to and therefore he didn’t want to review it
negatively. Another subscriber got a more up-to-date version from them
and had a go. He actually wrote a review but it was rather negative as
he wasn’t very impressed by what he managed to achieve with Tracer.
4.9
Instead of just publishing the review, we faxed a copy of it to Midnight
Graphics to give them the right of reply before going to press. They
said they felt that the review was unfair and pointed us to the fact
that they had sold over 600 copies “and have received no negative
comments”. They also faxed us a sample customer response form as “a
sample from many satisfied owners”. It was from an IT co-ordinator and
gave the simple response, “Excellent!”.
4.9
I have therefore refrained from publishing the review but would ask that
if any of the “over 600” owners of Tracer are subscribers that they drop
us a line telling us very briefly what they feel about Tracer. Thanks.
Ed.  A
4.9

4.9
Contact Box
4.9
•    German bulletin board − ArcWorld is an Archimedes BBS run by Thomas
Fischer. Ring it on +49−7191−23217 using 2400 baud 8n1.
4.9
•    Norfolk Schools bulletin board − Star-Net is run from Eaton (City of
Norwich) School by Paul Welbank. It is on 0603−507216 using 300 to 2400
baud (8n1). It is aimed mainly at schools in this area but open to
others to call in.
4.9
•    Wakefield is 100! − The Wakefield BBC Micro & Archimedes User Group is
having its 100th meeting celebrations on the evening of July 3rd 1991 at
Holmfield House, Wakefield. They will have a display of all the Acorn
range of machines from the Series One, through the Atom to the A540 and
R260. For further information, ring 0924−379778 or −255515 or −250764,
evenings or weekends.  A
4.9

4.9
Are you ...     fascinated by the Archimedes?
4.9
Can you ...    program in ARM Assembler?
4.9
Would you ...    like to work in a small team at the forefront of image
data compression?
4.9

4.9
If so, write to Bill Mullarkey at     DB Elec
tronics Ltd
4.9

4.9
Enthusiasm and capability are more important than formal qualifications.
However, the employment package could include sponsorship for continued
education at any level − elements of the work are sufficient for a
collaborative PhD.
4.9

4.9
    DB Electronics Ltd
4.9
    Systems House
4.9
    62-68 Strand Road
4.9
    Bootle
4.9
    Merseyside
4.9
    L20 4BG
4.9

4.9
Competition Corner
4.9
Colin Singleton
4.9
A century or so ago, a puzzle was sold for a penny on the streets of
London. It consisted of a peg-board with 36 holes drilled in a six by
six square array. Lines were marked joining the holes, six lines
horizontally, six vertically, and 18 diagonally, including all the short
diagonals. The object of the puzzle was to place six pegs in six of the
holes so that no two are connected by a straight line.
4.9
The eight by eight puzzle can be worded thus: place eight queens a
chess-board so that no queen is attacked by any other queen. They could
be placed on squares a4 b2 c8 d5 e7 f1 g5 and h6. This solution has the
interesting additional property that no three queens are in a straight
line, in any obscure direction.
4.9
This last feature is not a requirement of this competition. The problem
is to find the number of fundamentally different ways in which the
puzzle can be solved for n queens on an n by n board, excluding
solutions which are rotations or reflections of others.
4.9
There is only one solution for n=4, two for n=5, and one for n=6. Please
extend this list as far as possible.
4.9
The winners!
4.9
The January competition involved the calculation of e to 1000 decimal
places, or as far as possible. I did not penalise those who submitted
only 999 dp! The winner on speed, as usual, was Dr Riha of Leeds, whose
program took 0.21 sec on an A540. This, I think, is clearly faster than
the next best, 1.25 sec on an A3000.
4.9
The latter time was recorded by Andrew Wallace of Harlow, who wins the
endurance prize for having calculated 1 million places in slightly over
a week! His timings for around 100000 places were faster than those of
others who actually carried out the calculation, rather than simply
estimating the time.
4.9
No prizes for the shortest program, submitted by an entrant at Birming
ham University, using an algebra package. Apart from a few control
directives, the ‘program’ consisted of the expression to be evaluated,
which is the single letter e! When you enter these competitions, you are
supposed to write the programs.
4.9
The prize for the February competition (the Mastermind game) is also
shared, between J R Thorn of Cardiff and Graham Jones of Durness. They
both used essentially the technique I outlined but somehow managed to
diverge on the third guess, thereby ending up with very different
answers for the ‘most awkward’ secret number as defined for the
competition. The pattern of progress towards this number, however, is
very similar in each case and justifies a shared prize. The number is
identified on the seventh ‘guess’.
4.9
Graham’s sequence of guesses is 0123 (leaving 3048 possible numbers from
the worst reply) then 4567 (leaving 768), 1288 (170), 2619 (32), 9840
(4), 0034 leaving one, which is 8905.
4.9
Mr Thorn’s sequence is 0123 (leaving 3048 numbers), 4567 (768), 1488
(171), 6399 (30), 5990 (3), 2296 leaving only one possible, which may be
2692 or 2696, depending on the sixth reply.
4.9
The Snap problem in March produced three entries with a full list of
numbers of ocurrences of 0 to 52 snaps. Fortunately they agreed with
each other, which saves me having to work it out! I didn’t ask for the
fastest, so the result is a three-way split between Dr Riha (fastest
again!), Joseph Seelig of North Harrow and Cy Booker of Swanley.
4.9
Joseph also sent me (on disc) a full list for 208 cards, which took just
over 7 minutes to create and involves 393-digit numbers. A reader in
Holland related the puzzle to his experience in deciding who should buy
Christmas presents for whom. Interesting. I first encountered it in
connection with the inefficient secretary who managed to put all the
boss’s signed letters in the wrong envelopes.
4.9
Congratulations to all the winners, especially the three new names on
the roll of honour.  A
4.9

4.9
Colton
4.9
From 4.8 page 35
4.9

4.9
Unilab
4.9
New
4.9

4.9
Draw Plus − A Much Revised Application
4.9
Barry Thompson
4.9
It was interesting to read the article by Tord Eriksson in Archive 4.8.
It seems that he is using an earlier version of Draw1½. Jonathan Marten
has now released version 2.0 and calls it Draw Plus. A considerable
number of additions and refinements have turned this application into a
very comprehensive page creation program.
4.9
Libraries
4.9
Imagine being able to create libraries of your most commonly used drawn
fonts, electronic symbols and clip art or anything else for that matter.
The library can be saved in a file, independent of any drawings, and the
objects in it pasted into any drawing.
4.9
Layers
4.9
Objects can be created on up to thirty one layers. Layers allow related
information to be kept together and completed parts of the drawing to be
made un-selectable so that there is no danger of accidentally changing
them. Information not needed for the moment can be hidden.
4.9
Magnification
4.9
Clicking <adjust> on the zoom icon in the toolbox gives a range of
magnifications from 99:1 down to 1:99. An excellent feature of this is
that, having selected an object, clicking <select> on the zoom icon
means that the object that is magnified by zooming always appears at the
centre of the window.
4.9
Beware though of zooming in at large magnifications on hollow objects
like rectangles and circles − you end up looking at the white space at
the centre of the them. Use the scroll bars to find the section that you
require.
4.9
Background objects
4.9
Another feature, which is useful, is that objects can be set into the
background where they become un-selectable so that there is no danger of
accidentally changing or moving them. However, this feature may become
redundant now that it is possible to draw on layers.
4.9
Lines
4.9
There are eleven different selectable line styles within the application
and all can be edited to suit the user’s needs.
4.9
Extra menu items
4.9
The three icons at the right hand side of the toolbox are used for
orthogonal movement of the cursor when creating objects, magnification
selection and lastly grid lock. Clicking <adjust> over the last two
icons bring up menus from which various options can be set.
4.9
Clicking <menu> over a drawing window produces an extremely comprehen
sive menu. There is only space here to deal with some of the facilities.
4.9
Miscellaneous
4.9
This includes options on file information, printing, dashes, layers, set
objects in and clear objects from the background.
4.9
Further options allow sprites, text areas or text in ASCII form to be
saved. There is also an option in this menu which enables you to save
your favourite preferences and default settings.
4.9
Settings
4.9
Two items of particular note are: show XY (cursor position) and a
setting for automatic window scroll.
4.9
Create
4.9
This repeats some of the toolbox items with the exception of the polygon
option, which has a slide off arrow allowing the number of sides of the
polygon to be set (3 to 100 sides).
4.9
Select
4.9
An option is included whereby objects can be moved one place forward or
backwards in the stack that they are in.
4.9
Edit
4.9
This menu contains items useful when in path edit mode. It has options
to make lines truly horizontal or vertical and to straighten curves
without changing them to a line. Another option allows curves that
intersect to have their joining points smoothed.
4.9
Information such as the text and path styles, layer and dash pattern
information, grid and zoom options is saved along with the drawing, and
these items are restored when it is reloaded.
4.9
Text items
4.9
The usual features are incorporated including font name, style, size/
height, colour and background colour. What makes this section of the
program more interesting is the facility of changing the text styles
after the text has been typed and the return key pressed. How? Select
the text then − Menu − Text Style − then change the feature from the
menu that you want to change eg. font name, size, style or colour.
4.9
Special item menu
4.9
This menu option includes facilities which allow text to be converted to
path objects, much as FontDraw and FontFX. Text converted to paths can
be rotated, skewed, transposed, etc. A text explode menu option allows
text characters i.e. words or sentences to be broken into individual
parts. These can then be manipulated as individual text items to be
kerned, aligned, arranged into vertical text etc.
4.9
Alignments
4.9
This feature allows objects to be aligned at their top, bottom, right,
left or vertical or horizontal centre. Objects can be spaced out equally
in the horizontal and vertical plane. There is also a distribute
facility which allows the edges of several objects to be distributed
evenly to their top, bottom, right, left or vertical or horizontal
centre.
4.9
Bounding box
4.9
Lastly there is an option to draw a bounding box around an object or
group of objects. This is a useful feature for drawing an invisible box
around an object or group which contain thin lines. In some DTP
applications thin lines disappear into the sides of frames and are thus
not printed.
4.9
Key short cuts
4.9
Although most items can be selected by the mouse via menus, page
creation can be speeded up by the many function key, ctrl+key, shift+key
combinations. For example, Save Page is <F3> <return>, Save Selection is
<Shift-F3> <return>, <ctrl-A> selects ALL objects on the page, <ctrl-J>
brings up the alignment dialogue box and there are many, many more. One
undocumented feature is that, after pressing <F3>, the Save dialogue box
always appears under the pointer or cursor, pointing to OK so that you
can either click <select> or press <return>.
4.9
Finally
4.9
As can be gathered from my comments, I am very impressed by this
application. My first Capsoft disc (see Archive 4.7 p 13. Ed.) was
created almost exclusively using this program and all of the later ones
are being created using it and it can be thoroughly recommended. It
seems to be a much faster program in operation than the original Draw
supplied by Acorn.
4.9
I have used the various versions of this application almost every day
both at work and at home since they were released. Included with the
program is an excellent manual in the form of a text file in Edit format
and several example libraries and draw files, including a huge London
underground map.  A
4.9

4.9
Help!!!!
4.9
•    Armadeus sound sample distortion − When a standard relocatable sample
module such as StringLib is played, SYS “Sound_Control” can be used to
alter the pitch and volume. However, modules created by Armadeus suffer
from serious distortion if this command is used. Does anyone have a
solution? Jeremy Mears, 21 Collum End Rise, Leckhampton, Cheltenham, GL5
0PA.  A
4.9

4.9
PipeLine
4.9
Gerald Fitton
4.9
PipeLine is many things to many people. It started, and continues, as
this monthly column you are reading which appeared first in the October
1989. Later, I made the information available to a wider audience (i.e.
those who were not Archive readers) by producing a quarterly disc.
Although those who bought the first PipeLine disc (July 1990) were
exclusively Archive readers, I now have many subscribers who bought a
PipeLine disc first and, through it, learned of Archive magazine. These
PipeLine subscribers are now Archive readers as well.
4.9
More recently, PipeLine has evolved into a focus for exchange of
problems with, and ideas for, users of PipeDream − a sort of PipeDream
User’s Club. We have built up a team of ‘PipeLine Helpers’ who are
expert in different specialist areas (such as text, spreadsheet and
database file conversion from ‘alien’ packages) which they are able and
willing to support.
4.9
If you use PipeDream in a way that you find interesting enough to want
to show others (and help them with their problems), please write to me
(at the Abacus Training address on the inside rear cover of Archive) and
let me know. What do you get in return? Firstly, lots of thanks (and new
friends) from those with whom you correspond. Secondly, if you write up
your experiences and I publish it on a PipeLine disc, you get a refund
of the disc price and a free disc.
4.9
Paul’s hint
4.9
Yes! Paul Beverley is an ardent PipeDream user. Here is a partial
solution to a problem that I have been asked a dozen times or more.
Paul’s version of the problem (and his solution) is that he wants to
identify those rows in a spreadsheet which have a column containing
numbers lying between two values. He quotes as his example a sheet with
a (long) column of numbers, column L, in which he wants to identify
those rows which contain values between 499 and 501. The method Paul
uses (slightly modified by me) is to insert a new column A (place the
cursor in column B and use <Ctrl-F3>), place the cursor in the new
column A and use <Ctrl-LFC> to fix it. Note that your old column L is
now column M.
4.9
In A1 put the higher of the two values of the range (in this example
501) and the lower value (499) in A2; remember that these must be
numbers and not text; use <F2> to enter a number or an expression. In
the next cell, A3, enter the expression if(M3<A$1&M3>A$2,M3,0) and
replicate it down the whole sheet. Below the last entry (e.g. A499), in
say A500, enter the expression sum(A3A499)*2/(A1+A2). The expression in
A500 will evaluate to the number of rows in which a value between 499
and 501 occurs between M3 and M499. If you <Tab> across the sheet and
<Page Down> with column A fixed you will quickly pick up the rows you
want. Of course, a selective Save (using the ‘Save selection of rows’
dialogue boxes) to a new file will collect together the rows you want
and no other rows.
4.9
The growing file
4.9
Howard Snow loaded an 80K file having over 10,000 rows from a PipeLine
disc, sorted it on one of the columns and then tried to resave it. The
PipeLine discs are pretty well full and he got the error message ‘Disc
full’. He saved to another disc and found that the file had grown by
about 10K! He sent me the larger file. I loaded it, saved it, and it
shrank back to 80K! After many red herrings, it took Robert Macmillan to
come up with the solution. It was nothing to do with V 3.10 against
V 3.14 (still the latest version) and nothing to do with sorting but it
was the now well known ini problem (first recorded by Stephen Gaynor) in
another guise. Howard’s ini file contains the default Line separator
(see the Files − Save − Line separator dialogue box) CR,LF (or LF,CR)
whereas mine contains LF on its own. Whenever Howard came to save the
file he had an extra byte (the CR byte) per row that I didn’t. Ten
thousand rows produce ten thousand CRs, ten thousand extra bytes!
Although I loaded Howard’s file without problem (and he loaded mine) our
different ini files made the saving operations different.
4.9
The ini file
4.9
If you send me a file that relies in any way on default option settings
then send me a copy of your ini file too. If your file uses your default
settings and if they are different from mine then all your defaults will
be substituted by my defaults when I load your file. Perhaps the worst
thing that happened to me because of this ini feature is that Colton
Software sent me a price list on disc to send out with their PipeDream
leaflet. Their default ini was for numbers to be to two decimal places;
mine is zero. When I loaded their document and printed it, all prices
were rounded to the nearest £1.00 (instead of the nearest 1p) and I
didn’t notice it! I use a default of zero decimal places; if I send you
a price list in which I have forced some slots to two decimal places
then, no matter what your default − even if it is ten decimal places −
those slots I have changed from my default will be reproduced correctly
(two decimal places) when you load the document into your machine.
4.9
File conversions
4.9
The Liberator (see last month’s PipeLine column) was a now obsolete
computer. David J Holden used to have one. He has written many file
conversion routines to and from the Liberator format. One way of
converting files from, say, MasterFile format to PipeDream format is to
convert to and from some ‘standard’ intermediate format. David used the
Liberator format as the ‘standard’ intermediate format. The good news is
that David now has a copy of PipeDream 3 and will be rewriting his
routines. He will probably use PipeDream as the ‘standard’ intermediate
format.
4.9
Even better news is that Ian M H Williamson, a PipeLine subscriber, has
volunteered to be a PipeLine Helper for all PipeLine subscribers who
want to convert files of ‘alien’ format to PipeDream format. Send your
files on a disc to me in the first instance and I will pass them on to
Ian.
4.9
Illegal number of output bits
4.9
I can now make the definitive statement that this ‘bug’, which causes
printing to be cancelled, is not a PipeDream bug. Of course I am quoting
Colton Software but the experts over there have managed to get Acorn’s
!Draw to do the same thing under similar circumstances and have put the
problem back to Acorn. Watch this space!
4.9
Patricia Vasey has written to me with a technique which helps her to
avoid changing back to the default colours. It is simply to set the mode
to a 256 colour mode (e.g. mode 15) from the palette icon. News such as
this is still very much in demand both to help PipeDream users and to
help diagnose the problem.
4.9
Here is the latest suggestion! If you have set your FontMax values such
that you are using anti-aliased outlines on screen (with non standard
background colours) then this is what is held in the Font cache.
ColourTrans works hard for you on the screen presentation if you are
using non standard colours. If you now send your document to a RISC-OS
printer driver it seems to get confused about the anti-aliased outlines
interpreted by ColourTrans and produces the error message. Well, if you
don’t understand what I’m talking about, don’t worry, try Patricia’s
solution instead. What that (probably) does is to purge a lot of rubbish
out of the Font cache so that the Font Manager stands a chance of
sending correct information to the Printer driver.
4.9
Changing the colours in PipeDream to the default colours before printing
doesn’t always prevent the ‘bug’ striking particularly if you have a
second application (e.g. !Draw or !Paint) with documents that contain
text and a non standard palette. Here is some more advice; before
printing from PipeDream clear any marked block with <Ctrl-Q>; if you
can, purge the font cache (e.g. change the mode). It is always good
practice to Save before printing; if you have extensive trouble with a
file then save it, close the file, Tidy Up (or Quit) PipeDream, reload
the file and then print it.
4.9
Printing sprites
4.9
There seems to be some confusion over a remark I made in March. On the
July 1990 PipeLine disc there are ‘workarounds’ by Maurice Edmundson for
printing sprites from within PipeDream in ‘non square pixel’ modes. The
then current version of PipeDream would print sprites correctly only
from within ‘square pixel’ modes. The latest version of PipeDream,
V 3.14 will print sprites correctly from all modes. Because of this, the
‘workarounds’ on the July 1990 PipeLine disc are redundant. Indeed, if
you use Maurice’s ‘workarounds’ then V 3.14 will not print out the
sprites correctly.
4.9
Hence, when I publish the ‘revised edition’ (in July 1991) of the July
1990 PipeLine disc I shall not be including the redundant ‘workarounds’.
Some people have said to me that they don’t want to upgrade to V 3.14
because Maurice’s ‘workarounds’ won’t work any more with V 3.14. Don’t
worry about the ‘workarounds’ − upgrade now because V 3.14 is ‘better’
than earlier versions and you don’t need the ‘workarounds’. Gosh! Let’s
hope I’ve made it clear this time.
4.9
Upgrading PipeDream
4.9
This is a service for PipeLine subscribers only. I now have Colton
Software’s Upgrade Kit and permission to upgrade PipeLine subscriber’s
master discs to V 3.14. Send your master disc to me together with a
label and a 22p stamp. I will upgrade your master and get it back to you
by return post. A ‘PipeLine subscriber’ is one with a currently valid
annual subscription.
4.9
Booting
4.9
I have had some correspondence with Elwyn Morris about difficulties he
has had with booting up from switch on (PipeLine column August 1990).
Some of the function keys were being executed after booting. This is
cleared by adding a *FX 15 at the beginning of the Obey sequence. He was
getting an unwanted Untitled1 file on screen at the end of the sequence.
This doesn’t happen if you include \FQ|m as the last line of the Obey
file called by !Boot.
4.9
DiscCat & ArcScan
4.9
Francis Aries has improved his DiscCat (disc cataloguing) program which
first appeared about a year ago. He has used it to produce a catalogue
of the PipeLine discs. One consequence of the improved program is that,
to get the best out of it, Authors need to enter keywords on a specific
line. I hope to issue the revised July 1990 disc with keywords in place
for Francis’ program. Please will authors of PipeLine articles write to
me for details.
4.9
Let me know whether you want a catalogue of PipeLine in ArcScan format.
I have had an offer from Joe Herzberg to look after the ArcScan format
if there is enough demand so please let me know.
4.9
Has anybody got an index of the Archive PipeLine articles in PipeDream
format including a column of keywords which can be searched?
4.9
Tax tables, bibliography and timetables
4.9
L H Snow has sent me a PipeDream tax table spreadsheet. Daniel Dorling’s
Bibliography and school/college timetables by Peter Wicks are both
available on disc.
4.9
Mortgage calculations
4.9
Keith Matthews has sent me an excellent Shareware application which uses
PipeDream to make mortgage calculations. Do you want a copy? Being
Shareware you contribute to Keith whatever you think it is worth when
you have tried it out.
4.9
Charles Dickens
4.9
This database is of characters appearing in the works of Charles
Dickens. An excellent 65K file with references to over 1000 characters −
this file is indispensable for crossword puzzle or Dickens addicts − by
Roger M King of Guernsey.
4.9
Redefined keyboard
4.9
One for schools as well as serious users. Ed Rispin of the Institute of
Terrestrial Ecology has sent me a keyboard definition macro which
converts the keyboard to a set of tally counters. Ed says that when he
has collected a sample of invertebrates then he has to count the
different types. By allocating a different key to each type (e.g. Q for
snails, W for slugs, E for earthworms, etc) then the count consists of
tapping a single key for each specimen. Ed’s disc contains the macro, a
!Draw file for the keyboard layout and a blank for you to customise. Ed
uses this for real!
4.9
Macros
4.9
A growth area for PipeDream users. Send me yours. Recent contributions
include “Smart Quotes” and one to load and lock user dictionaries.
4.9
I am in contact with Colton about the best way of including macros on
disc so that you can record a macro and then copy the macro to another
disc (changing the directory path) and still have the macro ‘work’. The
problem is that different people might have different directory or disc
names for the directory containing the macros. I have a partial solution
which involves the recipient of the disc of macro files clicking on an
obey file to set a system variable which takes the value of the path
name to the macros. Has anyone any other suggestions? What we need is a
macro which sets the path to the macro directory!
4.9
The PUI
4.9
Up to now only two readers have written to Colton Software asking for
more information about the PUI. Perhaps it is not going to be as useful
as I and Colton Software thought!
4.9
Finally
4.9
At last I have managed to return every disc sent to me. Last month in
desperation, I operated a last in first out (LIFO) system on top of a
hierarchy of priorities. This meant that some of you who sent me discs
had to wait quite a long time for a reply. Generally I have given the
!Help correspondence a higher priority than PipeLine contributions. I
think that the longest delay was about six weeks. Sorry! However, more
of you benefitted from this policy than lost out and those with a
problem usually received a reply by return post. Also the April 1991
PipeLine discs were posted early (during the last week of March). I am
flattered by the spate of renewals − more than half of those who took
the April 1991 disc have already renewed.
4.9
Please keep your letters and discs coming. I will do my best to keep you
up to date with applications, to help you with your problems and I’ll
return your discs to you as soon as practicable.  A
4.9

4.9
Language Column
4.9
David Wild
4.9
There has been very little new on the language front during the last
couple of months − and it doesn’t seem as though there is a great deal
in the pipeline at the moment. I suppose that the next peak will be when
object-oriented versions start to appear for the Archimedes as they are
doing for the PC.
4.9
What does give some cause for concern, right across the computer range,
is the standard of programs that get released. In some cases, notably
dBase IV, the software house has been struggling to survive the damage
to their reputation.
4.9
Recently, I found that I had been using my home accounts package for
over a year and when I looked at the graphs I found that they didn’t
actually mean anything. During the first complete year they had
reflected the state of my bank account quite faithfully, but the program
couldn’t cope with the change to more than one year’s details.
4.9
An outlining package, supplied on one of the Careware disks from
Archive, turns out to have a number of bugs in it. The instructions say
that you are allowed eight levels of idea and you can “demote” an idea
from one level to another. If you forget how far you have gone, the
program can crash with an out-of-range subscript error. Another problem
is that you can load an existing file into the program but it will still
show up as a new file in the heading and using the save facility, which
has a very useful default directory feature, will save it as a new file
rather than the one that was brought in. There are one or two other
minor faults which add to the spoiling of what should have been a very
useful program.
4.9
The problem isn’t, of course, confined to the Archimedes − or even to
the micro-computer world. At work, we use a couple of mini computers
with programs supplied by a software house to meet our requirements and
we have to do some very fierce testing before we can let the programs
into our “live” system.
4.9
The common feature is that the errors were not found at the testing
stage; this ought to have eliminated all but the most subtle. It is true
that testing can never prove that there are no bugs but a good testing
plan can keep them to a minimum.
4.9
Ideally, this testing plan should be drawn up before any of the
programming work is started. It is, in effect, an important part of the
program specification. If you are writing a payroll program, for
instance, somebody should know exactly what outputs should be generated
by any input, and if this isn’t the case, you don’t know enough to do
the program design. The actual format, in terms of appearance, might
well be left till later but the employees who are to be paid by the
system will know how much they ought to get and will expect the program
to do it correctly.
4.9
Equally, the Income Tax and National Insurance people will know what
information, as well as money, they ought to get − and this will form
another part of the specification.
4.9
In most other applications, there will be similar knowledge about what
is expected from any input, and there should be clear information about
what should happen to any unacceptable input. With this information, you
should be able to generate test data which will allow you to check that
all input is treated correctly.
4.9
Creating all this test data and documentation is a big and unexciting
task but, if it is done properly, it can pay enormous dividends in
keeping out many of the bugs which seem to infest many programs.
4.9
The test data doesn’t all have to be realistic − invoices, for example,
can be for silly small amounts − but each item of input should be
identifiable throughout the run. One of my colleagues doing acceptance
testing of a new program fell into a trap by creating several lines of
data with identical amounts in each line. There was a bug in the program
that only read the amounts from the first line and repeated them on all
the subsequent lines for the transaction so he didn’t spot the bug.
4.9
Languages such as the current versions of ‘C’ and Pascal, which allow
you to compile separate modules to do common tasks, help to eliminate
many of the bugs but you still need to test to prove that the expected
results are produced.
4.9
The type of bug that I am talking about here must not be confused with
design flaws. There are programs which don’t do quite what I want but
they do do what was specified − so there isn’t a bug. A good example of
this was a small database program given away with a recent issue of
Archimedes World. The standard of programming, in terms of technique, is
absolutely first class but the program still needs quite a bit of
improvement. One interesting thing about it is that the programmer shows
that reasonably complex programs can be written in BASIC without any
need to use GOTO!
4.9
Turbo Pascal
4.9
I recently bought a copy of Turbo Pascal to run on the PC emulator. The
object-oriented facilities are extremely interesting and I hope that
someone, somewhere, is considering similar facilities for the Archi
medes. The combined editor and compiler is useful; it has facilities for
compiling in memory and any errors are reported back with the relevant
source code.
4.9
Turbo Pascal “units” are very similar to the modules in Acorn Pascal and
there are some very useful compiler options so that only changed modules
are recompiled.
4.9
Another facility similar to that on Acorn Pascal is a construct known as
a “typed constant” which is much the same as an initialised static
variable. The pedant in me rather dislikes the name as I feel that a
constant should be exactly that − with no risk of it changing during the
run.
4.9
Another pedantic objection is that there seems to be no way of telling
the system that you want non ISO-standard features flagged. The
philosophy seems to be that because Turbo Pascal is so popular there is
no need to worry about other people’s standards. I do feel that this is
rather short-sighted as many routines will be non-compatible.
4.9
As I explore the program, I will record my reactions and let you know
how I get on in later issues.  A
4.9

4.9
Credit where it is due
4.9
•    Thanks a lot! − In Archive, 4.7, p 60, I asked for information about a
module which makes the resolution of the mouse pointer dynamic.
4.9
The response has been quite staggering: I received no less than 23
letters from three countries telling me about the !MegaMouse module and
as if this were not enough, 5 people actually sent a floppy containing
the !MegaMouse.
4.9
Archimedes lovers really are great people!
4.9
Jochen Konietzko, Koeln, Germany  A
4.9

4.9
Small Ads
4.9
•    A3000 + Acorn colour monitor + stand. VGC £500 ono. Phone 0908−377239.
4.9
•    A3000 + colour monitor £600. Chromalock 235 £145, Atelier £50, Render
Bender £30, Splice & Tween £20, World View £5. All v.g.c. boxed. £800
the lot. Phone Mark on 081−670−8055.
4.9
•    A310 + CM8833 monitor dual drives, 2 slot bp, Trackerball, Star LC10,
140 discs inc storage, many books. All vgc. £650. Failing eye sight
forces sale. Can deliver up to 75 miles from E Northants. Phone
0933−57811.
4.9
•    A310/1 upgraded to 4M + 20M Hdisc £850, Oak 45M internal drive +
podule £250, Armadillo A448M MIDI/stereo sampler £120, Acorn MIDI podule
(latest software) £40, Laser Direct Qume £800, Impression II £100,
Tracker £25, Armadeus £30, Splice £15, Investigator 2 £15. Cost of
living forces return to Atari (yuk!). Phone Glenn on 0932−567614.
4.9
•    A310/1 upgraded to 4M, MEMC1a, IFEL 4slot bp, 2nd internal drive, VIDC
enhancer. Ex. cond. £1050 o.v.n.o. Phone Len on 0225−428662 after 1 p.m.
any day of the week.
4.9
•    A410, 2M RAM, 40M hard disc, Taxan 775 multisync monitor, First Word
Plus 2, all ex cond. £1000 o.n.o. Also Brother HR15 printer. Contact Mr
Lefebure on 0869−50482 evenings.
4.9
•    A410/1 colour 43M hdisk, 4M RAM, 5¼“ I/F & ext drive, PC emulator,
Acorn ISO C, ISO Pascal, PipeDream, FWPlus, PRM, Citizen 120D printer +
lots of other software, books, mags discs etc £1800 o.n.o. House
purchase forces reluctant sale. Phone 0380−720069 evenings & W/E.
4.9
•    A410/1 upgraded to 4M / 50M HD, Taxan 770+, dust-covers, manuals etc
as new. £1800 o.n.o. Software available. Phone 0582−607690.
4.9
•    A540 as new, boxed, software, cables etc. Offers over £3000. Phone Len
on 0225−428662 after 1 p.m. any day of the week.
4.9
•    Archimedes podules: Acorn I/O, Armadillo A448 sound sampler & FFT,
Brainsoft Multiboard. Also, Acorn C & Fortran 77. All under half price.
(Also various BBC/Master stuff.) Phone Ronald Alpiar on 0202−575234.
4.9
•    CM8833 monitor and lead £160 o.n.o. Phone 0942−884222.
4.9
•    Font Starter Pack £20, Midnight Graphics Clip Art 1 £15, ALPS £10,
World Class Leaderboard £10, Pacmania £5. Contact Michael Pargeter on
0462−434061 (evenings).
4.9
•    Original software boxed with manuals Poster £50, FWPlus1 £30, EFF
fonts (Albert, Clauch, Poster, Sophie, Sulikow, Swiss, Tamsin, Interact)
£40. Phone Mike on 0742−342870.
4.9
•    R140 + Viking II monitor + lots of PD software. Any reasonable price.
Also Pipedream £120, Teletext adaptor (software versions 1.05 & 2.01)
£70. Phone Andreas Fuchsberger on 0753−685048 or E-Mail
[e-mail] or [e-mail].
4.9
•    SCSI 20 Mbyte hard disc, Miniscribe, formatted, tested. £90 o.n.o.
Phone 081−643−1186.
4.9
•    Silver Reed EX43/IF40 daisywheel printer, 4 fonts, 5 cassettes, serial
& parallel interfaces £150 o.n.o. Ring Bournemouth 529787.
4.9
•    Sony 3½“ drive & dual slot front panel £75, Viewstore (Archimedes)
£15, WWisePlus (Arch.) £15, ANSI C v1.14 £10, 27128 EPROMs (PGM 12.5V)
£2.75 each. All prices o.n.o. Phone 0234−856070.
4.9
•    View for Archimedes £7.50, BBC BASIC Guide (vgc) £7.50. Phone Julyan
Bristow on 021−427−5084.
4.9
•    Watford A310 2M upgrade £150. Phone William Lack on 0743−790343.
4.9
•    Z88 + PC link II, 128k RAM, parallel interface, Archimedes lead,
magazines £235. Phone Jason on 0533−704315.
4.9
•    Z88 with mains adaptor, Archimedes link, parallel printer cable,
manuals etc £170. Phone Mike on 0742−342870.
4.9
Charity Sales − The following items are available for sale in aid of
charity. PLEASE do not just send money − ring us on 0603−766592 to check
if the items are still available. Thank you.
4.9
(If you have unwanted software or hardware for Archimedes computers,
please send it in to the Archive office. If you have larger items where
post would be expensive, just send us details of the item(s) and how the
purchaser can get hold of them.)
4.9
User Guides £2 + £3 postage, Genesis 1 £20, Superior Golf £8, The Real
McCoy (UIM, White Magic, Arcade Soccer & Quazer) £15, ArcWriter £4,
Serial Interface/buffer for Epson FX80 £15.  A
4.9

4.9
Schema − Good News & Bad News
4.9
David Scott
4.9
My recent acquisition of Schema (version 1.03) as a replacement for
Logistix and its disappointing performance, has prompted me to set up a
comparison between the three main contenders for the title of
‘Definitive Archimedes Spreadsheet’. A list of the main good and bad
points of Schema is also included.
4.9
Spreadsheet construction
4.9
A medium sized test sheet was created using each package in turn. It
consists of 100 rows by 30 columns (3000 cells). Cell A1 was initially
left blank. The rest of the first rows and columns were set up with
expressions of the form ‘A1+1’ so that each cell depends on the value
entered in A1. The block from B2 to the bottom right corner of the sheet
(AD100) was set up to give the product of the current row and column
using a formula of the form: ‘@A2*B@1’. (The @ sign indicates that the
following value is fixed; the actual method for doing this varies on
each package.)
4.9
Performance comparison
4.9
The performance was measured on an Archimedes 410/1 updated to 4 Mbytes
of ram and using a 42 Mbyte hard disc for loading and saving. The system
font was used for all tests which were displayed on a multisync monitor
in mode 20. The results of the tests are as follows:
4.9
    Logistix    Pipedream    Schema
4.9
Load time    4 s    20 s    70 s
4.9
Save time    4 s    9 s    10 s
4.9
Recalculation time    4 s    13
s    90 s
4.9
File size    130 K    44 K    90 K
4.9
Memory size    c.700 K    800 K
832 K
4.9
Summary of results
4.9
Logistix is by far the fastest program. Its main disadvantages are that
it is not a RISC-OS task and that the data files on disc are larger.
4.9
Pipedream makes most efficient use of disc space but is from 2 to 5
times slower than Logistix. It is a RISC-OS task but does not include
graphs and charts.
4.9
Schema is slow for both load and recalculation although files are midway
in size. Although many of the features are good, the performance
generally is too slow when used with spreadsheets of a substantial size.
4.9
(I would say that judging spreadsheets on the basis of one example sheet
could be a little misleading because different types of sheet will show
off the strengths and weaknesses of the different spreadsheets. Ed.)
4.9
Features of Schema
4.9
How does the newcomer, Schema, rate in terms of performance?
4.9
Good features are:
4.9
•    Full RISC-OS implementation
4.9
•    Graphs and charts are available and may be transferred to other tasks
in Draw format
4.9
•    Comprehensive macro language allows complex task to be programmed
4.9
Poor features (see below for more details) are:
4.9
•    Very slow with medium and large spreadsheets
4.9
•    Memory control is poor resulting in large and increasing requirements
4.9
•    Bugs can cause system failure and data loss
4.9
•    Difficult to set up column and row widths quickly
4.9
•    No headings facility for either columns or rows
4.9
•    Bad choice of default style − not a commonly used format
4.9
•    Macros can only be called by a slow menu-based method
4.9
•    Printouts can have both missing and extra columns/rows
4.9
•    Problems when loading data in CSV format
4.9
•    No support for converting from Logistix (support is provided for Lotus
123)
4.9
•    No standard database type functions as provided in most spreadsheets
4.9
Documentation is a 432 page manual which is comprehensive and generally
has good content but is spoiled by some minor errors.
4.9
As mentioned in the March 1991 issue of Archive, a new release is likely
later this year which will address some of the problem areas listed
above. In the meantime, it is really only suitable for small spread
sheets where it compares well with the competition.
4.9
Now the bad news
4.9
Now for some detailed comments on some of the problems found with Schema
Version 1.03. These are based on using it on an Archimedes 410/1
upgraded to 4 Mbyte of memory and a 42 Mbyte internal hard disc. The
Schema application and all data files were installed in a dedicated
directory on the hard disc. Schema was configured not to use overlays or
reset slots.
4.9
Speed
4.9
The time taken to load and recalculate medium to large spreadsheets is
slow. The larger the sheet, the worse this problem becomes. This
effectively precludes the use of spreadsheets with more than about 5000
active cells since the load or recalculation times can become many
minutes. The load speed is likely to be noticeably improved in future
releases.
4.9
Window redraw
4.9
The time taken to redraw a spreadsheet window of fixed size seems to be
proportional to the size of the spreadsheet. Large spreadsheets take
longer to redraw even though the visible data area is just the same as
for a small spreadsheet. This is because the results of visible cells
can be dependent on other non-visible cells.
4.9
Work space
4.9
The amount of work space required seems to be out of all proportion to
the size of the spreadsheet data file. One large sheet with about 10,000
cells required 2.4 Mbytes of memory during building of the sheet.
4.9
When workspace has been taken from the system, it can only be returned
if Schema is quitted. Discarding all of the spreadsheets has no effect
whatsoever on the current memory allocation. If a spreadsheet is saved,
discarded and then reloaded, the memory requirement often increases
further. If Schema is restarted, however, the memory requirement is
usually much less than that previously required when constructing the
sheet.
4.9
These work space problems will be improved in the next release.
4.9
Faults
4.9
When data is loaded from a CSV file, the spreadsheet must be created
with sufficient rows and columns to accommodate all the data being
loaded. If this is not done, all data which overflows the edges is lost
without any warning.
4.9
If the default style is set to anything other than Plain before loading
a CSV file then this is ignored and the default style is treated as
Plain.
4.9
Setting column and row sizes
4.9
The Column Width and Row Height are tedious to set up from the menu as
they are at the end of a long menu chain. One of these stages could be
avoided by setting the default units required from, for example, the
Spreadsheet Default menu. The values which are preset for the three
different units are not equivalent (96 point is not 1 inch, the correct
value is 72 point).
4.9
If one of the values is changed the values in the other units do not
move in synchronism. The value in the dialogue box is always the default
or last value set. It would be more helpful is this was the current
value of the selected row or column as this would enable a new value to
be guessed much more easily.
4.9
Note that the units required for the equivalent CHANGEHEIGHT and
CHANGEWIDTH macros are pixels.
4.9
Using the mouse to change the width/height is not always predictable.
Sometimes it seems to be impossible to make any change in size because,
even though the correct mouse pointer appears, only a window redraw
occurs. The amount of change in size is not always the amount indicated
by the mouse pointer.
4.9
Dialogue box termination
4.9
When dialogue boxes are used, the program is not consistent as to the
use of keys rather than mouse clicks to end the dialogue. ‘Return‘
should always equate to ’OK‘ or ’Yes’, and ‘Escape’ should equate to
‘Cancel’ or ‘No’. In some cases, pressing <escape> allows the operation
to go ahead instead of aborting it, for instance, with the block fill
confirmation dialogue box. In this case pressing <return> has no effect.
4.9
Keyboard macros
4.9
Keyboard macros are rather tedious to use as they have to be attached to
a submenu which is relatively slow to use.
4.9
Non-rectangular spreadsheets
4.9
If, as is quite common, it is not practical for a spreadsheet to be
rectangular, all the cells required to make the spreadsheet rectangular
are included by Schema if any formatting is applied to them. This can
make the spreadsheet both larger in memory requirements and in the time
taken to recalculate it. It is therefore worthwhile to avoid even
setting a style to unused cells.
4.9
YESORNO Macro
4.9
If <escape> is pressed, the result is not predictable and may lead to
system failure. It does not return <2> as stated in the manual, nor can
the pointer be moved outside the dialogue box.
4.9
Plain style
4.9
It is not possible to alter this style permanently, as the default style
reappears even after alteration and saving as the new default style. The
default parameters chosen are not particularly useful as one decimal
place is one of the less common requirements. The commonest requirements
in my experience are for either integer format or for two decimal places
(currency).
4.9
Headings
4.9
There is no headings facility which fixes one or more rows and/or
columns on the screen. It can only be simulated by opening another
window for the headings. This is both wasteful of screen space as well
as tedious to set up.
4.9
Documentation Problems
4.9
Page 55, 156: the use of the symbols, ^ (raise to power symbol) and
shift key symbol are confused.
4.9
Page 79: the three examples of rounding are all incorrect.
4.9
Page 83: the selected column width or row height is in inches, centime
tres or points (NOT characters).
4.9
Page 228: the two local variables called ‘a’ and ‘butter’ are not
declared in the example.
4.9
Page 233: Repeat evaluates the given sequence until the expression
evaluates to a zero value (NOT non-zero).
4.9
Page 240: Line 2 refers to a list below. There is no obvious list.
4.9
Page 241: There is a reference to attaching a macro to F9 and F10. Both
these keys are already used for other functions as is Shift F10.
4.9
Page 273: The ‘Related macros’ refers to CELL. This is a function not a
macro.
4.9
Page 276: CONTMACRO refers to Shift F9 and F10. Shift F10 is already
used. How is this specified, is it 0 = F9 and 1 = F10?
4.9
Print problems
4.9
If the grid lines are printed then their thickness is variable. The
alignment of the characters relative to the grid lines is poor when the
row height is reduced.
4.9
It is not clear that the ‘Header’ and ‘Margin’ figures represent fixed
rows and columns rather than the row and column labels. When printed on
the LaserDirect Qume, the contents of the Header and Margin rows and
columns are not printed; only blank cells.
4.9
One more column at the right hand side of the sheet is printed than
existed on the spreadsheet.
4.9
(Colin Ross Malone Ltd, who are doing the programming of Schema for
Clares, have acknowledged most of these problems and are seeking to
solve them and implement various enhancements in a later version(s) of
Schema.)  A
4.9

4.9

4.9
Stars on your Screens
4.9
Ronald Alpiar
4.9
(Some time ago, we asked readers to tell us what sorts of things they
did with their Archimedes computers. Ronald has written to tell us about
how he uses his Archimedes (alongside a PC − Hiss, boo!) to do some
fascinating computer assisted astronomy. We have given him some space −
perhaps more than usual, but it is very interesting − to explain. He has
sent some photos to show us but not all of them, I am afraid, are easily
reproducable in mono, but we will have a go with some of them. Ed.)
4.9
The computerisation of astronomy, ‘re-rigeur’ for the professional
astronomers, is now all the rage amongst amateurs. So I ought really to
begin with a Pauline Health Warning and caution you that, once hooked by
this metamorphosis of an ancient hobby, you may well become a lifetime
addict!
4.9
Here’s how it all works. At the focus (both literally and metaphori
cally) of the entire setup is the Charge Coupled Device Sensor − the CCD
chip. This is an IC somewhat similar, electronically, to an EPROM, in
which the UV filter is replaced by a transparent glass window. The light
sensitive area consists of an array of pixels in each of which incoming
light photons can be converted into ‘free’ electrons. They are not quite
free, because each pixel forms a potential well which confines the
accumulating photo-electrons. At a given signal, the potential well
walls are lowered, thus shepherding packages of pixel electrons in an
orderly manner to a readout position where each such package creates a
charge for amplification, receives further processing and finally is
turned into a video display. In normal circumstances this ‘expose-
readout’ cycle takes place at video frame rate − 50 frames/second.
4.9
Now, what can you see if you point a normal video camera at a starry
sky? The answer, however light sensitive your camera may be, is precious
little − far less, in fact, than you’d see with a cheap pair of
binoculars. At best, a few of the brightest stars visible to the naked
eye − big deal!
4.9
So what’s the point? The point lies in that tiny time slice − 1/50
second − during which photo-electrons are allowed to accumulate in the
CCD’s pixels − that is under normal video operating conditions. The
intelligent reader will now be way ahead of me. Why not permit the
pixels plenty of time to amass lots of lovely electrons and only then
flush the accumulated contents to the readout position? This ‘integrated
exposure’ is precisely the trick which astronomers use to capture the
images of faint stars − whereby not 1/50 sec, but seconds, minutes or
even hours of integration time are employed. The method works splendidly
− but there are three snags.
4.9
House Full!
4.9
The first snag is that the potential well walls which confine electrons
within pixels are necessarily finite. In practice, about 150,000
electrons would fill up a well; adding more would cause an overflow to
neighbouring pixels. So, if in order to capture faint stars, you
increase integration time, any bright stars in the field will be over-
exposed. Any further photo electrons created will slide over the top of
the potential walls into neighbouring pixels. Ultimately the entire
pixel array can become flooded by the overflow from brighter stars.
However, long before that catastrophic point, both detail and dynamic
range begin to suffer.
4.9
Keep it cool!
4.9
The second snag is that, even in the total absence of incoming light, we
have to contend with free electrons in the CCD substrate. Being confined
in potential wells, these ‘thermal electrons’ build up − just like
photo-electrons. The term ‘thermal’ is well chosen, since this phenom
enon is highly temperature dependent. At normal room temperature, and
even in the total absence of any incident light whatsoever, thermal
electrons can fill up potential wells in as little as 10 seconds. How
then do the professionals achieve integration times of minutes or hours?
4.9
The answer it to cool it! By reducing the CCD’s temperature, and hence
that of its substrate, you dramatically reduce the number of thermal
electrons − thus opening the door to long integration times. Nowadays
cooling is delightfully simple, thanks to a tiny device known as a
Thermo Electric Cooler − TEC. It consists of a parallel array of diodes
which utilise the Peltier Effect to act as a heat pump. Heatsink one end
of the pump, and the other end rapidly cools down. In practice, a TEC is
a tiny sliver − size of a 5p piece − which is thermally sandwiched
between the under surface of the CCD chip and a substantial heatsink. It
is typically powered by a 5 volt ¼ amp DC supply and quickly lowers the
substrate temperature at least 30 C below ambient. At that stage, we
stop worrying about thermal electrons and start worrying about our
optics getting covered with condensation!
4.9
Grab it!
4.9
Now, video signals normally consist of a train of successive frames
flying past at 50 frames/second − the eye and photo-persistence
providing the illusion of continuity. Our third snag is that following
integration time we receive one frame and one frame only of integrated
information. High alertness is needed to grab it before it is gone for
ever. One way to do this is to record it on video and subsequently view
the single integrated frame in freeze-frame mode. However, this solution
is far from satisfactory for critical astronomy. Rather, the frame is
digitised, pixel-by-pixel, the results being stored in RAM. We thus end
up with an area of RAM which mirrors the contents, after integration, of
the array of CCD pixels. Timing is of the essence; grabbing the next
frame must follow immediately after sending the ‘stop integrating’
signal to the CCD driver: and that can only be done when the same device
controls both integration and the digitiser board.
4.9
Image processing
4.9
This is where the computer takes over. After generating a timed exposure
and grabbing the integrated frame, displaying the result on VDU could
simply consist of transferring the appropriate contents of RAM to
screen.
4.9
However, we can do far, far more than that. Image Processing (IP)
enables us to manipulate, clean-up, enhance, even beautify the raw image
− beyond photography’s wildest dreams. At its simplest level, IP is used
to scale and/or rotate the display − maybe for easier comparison with
star charts. The two commonest IP functions are ‘thresholding’ (removing
noise by setting a lower intensity limit to what’s displayed) and
‘stretching’ (selecting part of the observed dynamic range and scaling
it to cover the entire dynamic range available on display). These two
simple, but powerful, techniques reveal faint details which are
practically invisible in the original image field. ‘Convolution kernels’
can be applied to detect edges and thus sharpen up fuzzy images. At a
more advanced level, FFTs are used to compute spacial frequencies, thus
enabling us to resolve nearby sources − such as binary stars which are
so close as to appear as one. Lastly, by in-depth analysis of the image
field, a novel method of IP (developed by the author) − called
‘auditing’ − allows us to tabulate the entire stellar contents for
display in any way we choose.
4.9
Nor is there any colour-bar, even though we’re using monochrome cameras.
Information obtained by conducting timed exposures via coloured filters
can be combined to display the subtle tint differences between stars −
or indeed to enhance them.
4.9
I don’t have to remind my fellow countrymen how hostile our climate is
to astronomy. Sometimes ages pass with barely an half-hour break in the
night sky coverage. This makes computerised astronomy particularly
attractive: during a single half-hour cloud break, you can capture
enough images to keep yourself happily occupied processing, studying and
wondering at them for weeks to come. Moreover you need burn no midnight
oil!
4.9
Getting it together
4.9
We’ve now considered all five essential ingredients − CCD sensors,
integrated exposure, cooling, frame grabbing and image processing. How
is this kit of parts all put together? Back to that bedroom − which
happens to adjoin a large flat roof − home to the author’s astro
equipment including the item of concern to us now, illustrated in the
photo. Here we see an array of three cameras saddled on a common
‘equatorial’ mount. Before turning our attention to those cameras, a few
words about the mounting.
4.9
As is standard in astronomy, it consists basically of two perpendicular
axes, so that one can point the camera array in any direction. However,
the whole thing is strangely tilted over. In fact, one of the axes is
adjusted to always point directly at the earth’s celestial pole − the
Pole Star near enough. This is because, due to the earth’s daily
rotation about its own axis, all stars (Sun included) appear to trace
out concentric circles, centred on the celestial pole − circling it in
approximately 24 hours. When we make timed exposures we would just see
faint circular arcs instead of sharp star points. So we have to
compensate for the earth’s rotation by counter-turning our cameras about
the same axis, and at just the same rate. Astronomers call this
‘tracking’ : if the mount is equatorial this is very simply achieved by
inching only one of the mount’s two axes of rotation. In my case the
axes are driven, via precision worm gears, by three stepper motors. A
BBC Master is dedicated to complete control of the equatorial mount. Its
User Port generates TTL signals which, after amplification, drive the
stepper motor windings. Software enables one to slew rapidly from ‘home’
direction to any chosen direction in the sky − or to any object whose
celestial coordinates are known: calculating the correct number of
stepper motor steps, the program compensates for the fact that the star
will have moved on or back a little by arrival time. On completion of
slew, the mount locks onto the direction by tracking: again the program
uses internal timers to generate stepper motor pulses at exactly the
correct rate to compensate for the earth’s rotation.
4.9
Cabling trunks connect the roof-top equipment to the bedroom computer
control centre. Thereby all slewing, tracking, camera operation, shutter
control, focussing, viewing etc can be remotely performed in the luxury
of indoor warmth and comfort.
4.9
Cameras and lenses
4.9
There are three independent cameras in the array. Two of them are DIY
modified Phillips Imaging Modules. These consist of a CCD sensor
together with all the electronics to drive it on five surface technology
circuit boards. All it needs is a 12 volt supply, and an ordinary video
monitor to display the view. I had to locate and cut the fine circuit
board tracks which send four sets of timing pulses to the CCD. They are
diverted to an extra board which subjects all four to a common TTL gate
control. When control is low, CCD operation proceeds at the normal video
rate: when high, the timing pulses are interrupted, allowing photo-
electrons to accumulate until it falls low again. Nerves of steel and
rock steady hands were needed to cut and solder the microscopic tracks
on the surface technology circuit boards! Only one of these two cameras
incorporates a TEC cooler. The third camera, which provides all the
illustrations for this article, is a commercial Lynxx astro camera from
SpectraSource.
4.9
The photo shows all three (if it comes out in print! Ed). The rectangu
lar boxes house my modified Phillips Imagers. The lower, and larger box
contains the TEC cooled imager, its reddish copper plate heatsink being
clearly visible. Nestling and somewhat dwarfed between them, sits the
Lynxx camera.
4.9

4.9

4.9

4.9

4.9
Notice that all three employ, as optics, ordinary camera lenses.
Although all have also been mounted on powerful astronomical telescopes
for deep sky work, the humble photo lens is all that’s required for wide
‘rich field’ working, comet hunting etc.
4.9
Digitisers
4.9
A digitising circuit is essential to convert the analogue pixel charges
to digits for computer storage. The digitiser has to be very fast,
particularly if its to grab and digitise pixel contents at full video
rate. Assuming a 256x256 pixel array, each digitisation must be complete
in a mere 0.3 µsec: this can only be achieved using so-called ‘flash’
converters. However, if the readout can be slowed down to a more
leisurely pace, we gain time to digitise with greater accuracy. This
leads to another important digitiser requirement − resolution: that is,
the number of bits that an analogue variable is digitised to. It can
easily be shown that high resolution − lots of bits − is quite critical
for serious astrophotography: otherwise not only do we sacrifice the
vast dynamic range of stellar brightnesses, but fainter stars, close to
the noise background, are progressively lost. Professional astronomers
use 16-bit (or more) digitisers: but plenty of serious work can be done
with 12-bit resolution. Eight bits is just about tolerable for amateur
work; whilst with only 6 bits, one’s options become quickly exhausted.
4.9
Here’s what’s available −
4.9
For the Archimedes: Watford’s Video Digitiser (6-bit) Hawk’s V9
Digitiser (8-bit)
4.9
For PCs : Lynxx Camera & Digitiser (12-bit) & very many other 8 bit
ones.
4.9
I use the Lynxx digitiser plugged into a PC, and a Watford Podule on the
Archimedes (Hawk being too expensive though desirable). Surely a slight
modification of the Watford Podule, incorporating one of the increas
ingly cheap and common 8-bit flash AD converters would be possible −
thereby transforming a clever toy into a valuable piece of scientific
equipment: Mike, are you reading this?
4.9
Computers
4.9
Digitisers are designed to plug into specific computers: so the demands
of the digitiser dictates the choice of computer. There’s absolutely no
way one can treat a Lynxx digitiser as an Archimedes Podule − nor a
Watford Podule as a PC expansion board. So to use the Lynxx camera at
all, one needs a PC − in my case an Amstrad 2286. Lest I be accused of
treachery I plead that the latter is used for only two purposes, both
unprovided for by Archimedes, namely as host to (a) the Lynxx expansion
board and (b) a CD-ROM reader expansion board. This latter gives me
access to the gigantic (19 million star) GSC catalogue on two CD-ROM
disks.
4.9
In both cases, files of information are written onto disk, and
immediately transferred to Archimedes (thanks for Arxe’s MultiFS
software), where all remaining work is carried out.
4.9
IP software
4.9
All imaging processing and display software is written in BASIC, with
some embedded assembly language. My highly CPU intensive and recursive
Auditing algorithms are also in BASIC and greatly accelerated using the
ABC Compiler. ‘C’ afficionadoes may raise their eyebrows − but I offer
no apology! After nearly 2 decades of intensive programming in both
languages I find BASIC incomparably the better for developing, testing
and running. It is fully up to coping with the most elaborate algo
rithms, including compilers for other high level languages. The ability
to run in either interpreted or compiled modes is a godsend, which
decimates development time. I might expatiate for hours on C’s many and
grievous shortcomings: here I mention only its messy and confusing
insistence on a cacophony of curious brackets and punctuation marks and
the quite appalling implementations (with the honourable exception of
Borland’s Turbo C) which force the hapless programmer to spend far more
time struggling with a user-hostile implementation than actually writing
the program! To me C appears to be advocated on grounds which are either
doctrinaire (e.g. that it’s ‘structured’) or quite false (e.g. that it’s
‘portable’). (I was going to edit this out to avoid possible offence
but... well, it’s a magazine in which people can express their own
views, so, why not? Ed.)
4.9
The accompanying figures (all of which are dramatically illustrate the
power of IP. They are all based on a single exposure using an Olympus
42mm f1.2 lens and a 30 second integration time. Of all the stars shown
(some 120 have been audited) only the brightest would be visible to the
naked eye.
4.9
Figure 1 is the raw CCD image. Theoretically, individual stars ought to
occupy only 1 pixel. Note that the brighter ones already overflow into
neighbouring pixels. Moreover, the brightest, top right, shows the
typical tail due to its electrons being dragged over neighbouring
pixels, when flushed upwards to the readout position. Software added the
coordinate axes and labelling, the sky itself being devoid of such. The
stars are plotted on a 16-level grey scale, which scarcely does them
justice.
4.9
In Figure 2 we see the mixed benefits of windowing and stretching. Many
more stars are seen than in the original, however they’ve all grown into
quite ugly blobs, as in a badly focussed picture.
4.9
The pristine point nature of stars is restored in Figure 3 (only on
program disc), thanks to the Audit processing. Lastly, in  4, we see the
effect of adding colour (definitely only on the program disc!).
Information extracted from three extra exposures, using red green and
blue filters was added to the original naked exposure. The hue informa
tion was mathematically scaled up to exaggerate the slight tint
variations amongst the stars.  A
4.9

4.9

4.9

4.9

4.9

4.9

4.9
Camera piccy here
4.9

4.9
Figure 1 − The raw CCD image
4.9

4.9
Figure 2 − The effect of windowing and stretching
4.9

4.9
DTP Seeds
4.9
Tony Colombat
4.9
Open any magazine with connections to the Archimedes and somewhere there
will be a reference to DTP. It may be a comment on one of the many
programs, details on DTP history or terminology, or just hints and tips
on how to avoid such errors as “rivers” or “orphans”. I find all this
detail interesting but does it improve my DTP?
4.9
Inspiration for DTP
4.9
It is with the aim of providing inspiration for improving DTP presenta
tion that Mike Matson’s book has been produced. The 120 pages are packed
full of ideas, designs and creativity which the reader is encouraged to
adapt for their own purpose. The biggest idea which is passed on in the
book is the need to look carefully at what you read − not just at the
words but at the way the words are presented and how this may help you
in your own productions.
4.9
Contents
4.9
The headings include; Page layouts, Stationery, Graphs, Invitations,
Posters and Advertisements, Contents, Headers and Footers, and Titles
and Logos. Each section contains a number of examples, some of which are
annotated to describe features the reader should observe. To fully
appreciate the techniques involved, however, a supplementary disc needs
to be available. This should be possible, as incredibly, all the pages
of the book were produced using “Edit”, “Draw” and (showing its power in
DTP) “Poster” from 4Mation.
4.9
Conclusion
4.9
Is the book worth the money? It certainly is if you want inspiration for
producing impressive DTP documents, but don’t expect to learn any
technical terms or details. I think the book needs to read in conjunc
tion with simple technical reviews such as that supplied in Archive 4.3
p51 or the book supplied by Computer Concepts along with their Impres
sion II DTP package.
4.9
“DTP Seeds” by Mike Matson from 4Mation at £8.45 (or £8 from Archive).
A
4.9
Shareware Nº 37
4.9
Alan Highet
4.9
All the programs have been tested on a standard A310 and on a 4 Mbyte
A410 with ARM3 and SCSI hard drive. Unless otherwise stated, all
programs ran on both machines.
4.9
Help
4.9
This is a very clever utility which adds a help option to the filer
application menu and is resident in most of the applications on all the
discs I have received from N.C.S. recently.
4.9
If you click <menu> over an application and then go to the sub-menu
‘App. <application>’ there is a help option added which, when selected,
displays the readme file in the application directory. It works by
having a ‘Help’ application inside the main application which in its
turn displays the readme file.
4.9
Aidon
4.9
If you click <menu> on the disc icon and select ‘Free’, a rather messy
command window appears showing disc space in bytes which most people
find confusing. This utility changes that by intercepting the call and
displaying the information in a neat little window with the space
displayed in K along with a sliding bar displaying graphically the
amount of disc space used.
4.9
Basedit
4.9
This is yet another icon bar front end for the BASIC editor but this one
really does set out to allow you easy access. You can just <shift-click>
on a BASIC program and the editor will be loaded with the program in
view. Returning to the desktop by pressing <F1> twice leaves the program
but unfortunately doesn’t warn you to save the program. The other
problem is it will not work with a SCSI hard disc. I assume because it’s
looking for ADFS disc 4.
4.9
This is certainly one of the best front ends I’ve tried and, with a
small modification, I would use it regularly.
4.9
Find
4.9
Clicking on this icon displays a find box enabling you to search any
disc for a file or directory with the ability to use wildcards and
filetype selection. Clicking on ‘Go’ starts the search and, as the files
are found, they appear below the main window. When the search is
finished you may click on any file displayed and the parent directory
will appear. − A very useful addition for anybody with a hard disc. (I
find it awfully slow by comparison with the equivalent on the Mac. Is
there a faster version or is it a function of the way the Archimedes
files are structured? Ed.)
4.9
Myhelp
4.9
This allows you to add your own help commands which can be called up at
any time. You simply add the command to an ASCII menu and the help lines
to another ASCII file and then place the application on your disc.
Clicking on the application displays a window with the relevant command
queries and clicking on the required one displays the associated
information.
4.9
Pseudoapp
4.9
This application is only really useful for a hard disc owner as it
allows multiple applications to be seen but only one copy to be kept on
the disc so saving space. After installing it on the icon bar, you drag
an application to the bar and release it. A similar application icon
will appear and this can then be dragged to a file window and released.
The program then creates an application which contains only a !Boot
file, a !Sprite file and a !Run file which stores the location of the
real application. By double clicking on the icon the real file is then
run transparently to the user.
4.9
This has a limited use but works very well and could be used for
temporary directories for program development. Although this works just
as well on floppy discs, prompting you to insert the appropriate discs,
you might as well label the discs properly and install the actual
application.
4.9
Setdir
4.9
Once this is installed on the icon bar, any directory dragged to it is
selected as the current directory and a filer window is opened display
ing the contents of that directory. There is also an overscan utility
selected by clicking menu on the icon bar. This gives you an overscan
version of most of the popular modes along with a very big screen and a
very small screen.
4.9
The setdir side of the application works fine but the overscan did cause
me some problems. If you are using overscan and you quit overscan
instead of selecting a new mode with the palette icon, the machine will
lock up requiring a <ctrl-break>. Although this is not really a bug, I
do think you shouldn’t be able to do it.
4.9
StrongEd
4.9
This is a text editor similar to Edit but allowing up to four documents
in memory which you can cut and paste between. Although quite useful, it
really is only the same as multiple copies of Edit. The program sits on
the icon bar and is RISC-OS compatible but does not multi-task. Programs
may be loaded by dropping onto the icon bar and saving is either
achieved by a normal save function or, if creating a new file or
filetype, returns you cleanly to the desktop with a save box ready to
drag to a filer window.
4.9
The functions, similar to Edit, work very well and the speed of the
search and scroll are truly superb but I just wonder what benefits this
program has over Edit or Twin. Maybe time will tell?
4.9
Fontmenu
4.9
This module provides a hierarchal font menu which means that the initial
menu shows the font name with sub-menus showing styles such as bold,
italic, etc. This is very similar to the menu used in Impression II and
is a much tidier idea for anyone using more than a few fonts. The
problem is that you need to understand something about programming to
use it and if you wish to use it with commercial software you would need
to be able to access their code which is not at all easy if the program
was not written in BASIC.
4.9
Hdrivelist
4.9
This is an ASCII list of virtually every hard disc drive giving details
such as size, access times, track data and other technical details. The
list is very comprehensive but I wonder if anybody would actually use
it?
4.9
Interface
4.9
This module allows you to add graphical effects to your windows when
writing an application. One nice touch was the inclusion of an Impres
sion document for the manual as well as an ordinary ASCII file.
4.9
The effects available at the moment include a choice of borders for an
icon and the choice of how the icon is displayed when selected. You can
also select the type of pointer used depending on its position, similar
to Impression.
4.9
My programming knowledge doesn’t allow me to fully utilise this module
but what I have seen works well and compliments the already easy to use
FormEd which is also included on the disc.
4.9
Sysfont
4.9
This allows you to create a module to change your system font by typing
*ALPHABET <alphabet name>. Any BBC font can be used (filetype &FF7) and
nine are provided with the program.
4.9
This works perfectly and could very easily be incorporated in your own
programs to change text as and when required although the desktop font
can just be installed by double-clicking on the appropriate icon.
4.9
Zansi
4.9
Zansi.sys is a replacement for Ansi.sys in MS-DOS and increases the
screen response under PC emulation. I have not been able to test the
program but the author claims that the Archimedes will run faster than
an 8MHz AT. Also included are MORE.com which replaces the DOS ‘type’
command and VIEW.com which allows you to view files just like a text
editor.  A
4.9

4.9
Creating the Right Impression
4.9
Ivor Humphreys
4.9
As Audio Editor of the monthly classical record magazine GRAMOPHONE, I
look after all aspects of the pages which are devoted to hi-fi matters.
Until recently, the whole of the magazine has been produced the hard
way, using glue and scissors to assemble pages which the printer then
follows. An Archimedes user since 1988, it was inevitable that I should
look towards its DTP potential, with a view ultimately to producing
finished pages for the magazine. With that in mind, I made contact with
Computer Concepts in August 1989.
4.9
Progress has been methodical and, I’m glad to say, almost linear. There
was much to learn about driving Impression well enough to produce final
artwork which would emulate our house style exactly, although the
program is wonderfully intuitive to use. I was determined not to
compromise in any respect, and things like the symbols we use to denote
the CD, LP or cassette media (C L A), the extended range of foreign
accents we require and the way in which in-text codes for all these
things are used in our ‘raw’ copy (much of which comes across from a PC
network running Wordstar) naturally took some fathoming. I must say
straight away that we could not have been achieved all this without the
frequent and extensive help we have received from CC, who have written a
special version of their Wordstar loader module to suit our particular
requirements and have also helped iron out several last-minute crises
that we have had with PostScript.
4.9
The system has been in regular use for magazine work for about a year
and now supplies finished artwork for the whole of our audio section,
several other fairly complex editorial pages, some advertisements and
quite a lot of other in-house material each month. It also generates
about a dozen preliminary pages of our twice-yearly catalogue of
classical music releases as well as its monthly supplement. We are about
to embark on the most ambitious project of all, so far: the 1992 edition
of our 672-page book for newcomers to Compact Disc called The Good CD
Guide.
4.9
As an Archive subscriber from the start, I naturally corresponded with
Paul Beverley on occasions and indeed NCS have supplied two of our three
machines. As Paul has had a fair number of enquiries about producing
professional artwork on the Archimedes, I volunteered to jot down a few
thoughts to try and smooth the way a little for others wanting to
produce professional DTP output.
4.9
PostScript
4.9
To produce finished artwork, you will have to convert your DTP program
output to PostScript format on a disc which can then be taken to a
professional typesetting bureaux. As only a very few of these have so
far installed Archimedes (but for details of some that have, see
Impression Hints & Tips, page 11. Ed.), the final format will almost
certainly have to be MS-DOS, which is universally accepted. The Acorn
PostScript printer driver is used to produce the file, which is then
dragged across to an MS-DOS filer window and renamed. At GRAMOPHONE we
use a separate directory on the hard disc (called, quite sensibly,
‘PostScript’!) and use the same default name each time to prevent the
build-up of redundant material; this is well worth the trouble since
PostScript files are often large.
4.9
System requirements
4.9
Much of my early work was done at home on an A310 with no hard disc but
with an external Cumana 40/80 track 5¼ inch drive which was used with
the PC Emulator and for taking Beeb-originated text from one of my
colleagues. An early 420 at the office was a revelation and this, as
well as the 310, has now been upgraded to 4 Mbytes of RAM with ARM3, to
complement the recent further acquisition of an A540. I think now that a
RAM capacity of 4 Mbytes is pretty well mandatory for serious DTP work
(8 M isn’t outrageous), as is a hard disc, and I would describe ARM3 as
one of those rather expensive options that makes you wonder how you
managed previously.
4.9
Two excellent utilities are Minerva’s PC-Access and, for the Beeb files,
Emmet Spier’s Public Domain program DFSreader. PCDir (also PD) is a
perfectly good alternative to PC-Access except that it doesn’t format
discs to MS-DOS, something which is a surprisingly regular necessity
with the size of typical PostScript files. (Loading the emulator just to
do this is a pain because it doesn’t multi-task.) A couple of other
utilities I’ve found particularly useful are Wastebin from LOOKsystems,
which has the benefit of saving its ‘rubbish’ to disc (giving you a
second chance to rifle through it, unlike the regular filer delete
option) and Emmet Spier’s SciCalc, which I use a lot in almost every
session (you can even drag results into an Impression document). Both of
these are also PD and available from NCS. One final plug is for Jonathan
Marten’s latest enhancement to the original !Draw program, DrawPlus,
which, like Impression, is extremely intuitive to use. I find it
invaluable. Again it’s PD but I would have paid good money for it.
4.9
(DFSReader is on Shareware 31 (or as a separate program from Watford
Electronics at £6 + £2 p&p + VAT), PCDir is on Careware 7, Draw1½ (an
earlier version than DrawPlus) is on Shareware 34 and DrawPlus is on
Careware 13. There are dustbins littered(!) around various Careware and
Shareware discs, but the LOOKsystems’ one is on Shareware 36. Ed.)
4.9
Output
4.9
The latest version of Impression II (2.10) has the facility to add crop
marks at the printing stage, obviating the need to set up a master page
which is larger than the final required page size. One anomaly with the
Acorn PostScript driver, however, is its inability to print pages larger
than A4, regardless of the page size set in its menu options. All
professional work requires either crop marks or, for four-colour work,
registration marks outside the document print area. There are two ways
around this. The best by far is to purchase CC’s Expression-PS utility,
which has a variety of very useful functions designed to enhance the
existing Acorn driver. (These include a range of standard pages with or
without extra margins for crop marks, control of half-tone screen
density, dot shape and screen angle and an extremely ‘friendly’ routine
for matching up PostScript font names with their Acorn equivalents.)
Alternatively, one can modify the “PrData” file for one of the set pages
within the driver application itself. For example, my page width is
230mm and the depth 300mm, which equates to 652pt by 850pt. I use
Version 1 of the driver, in which the A4 page is altered, changing the
line:
4.9
  page_selection: %%BeginFeature: PageSize A4|Ja4|J%%EndFeature
4.9
to read:
4.9
  page_selection: %%BeginFeature: PageSize A4|Jstatusdict begin
4.9
 652 850 0 1 setpageparams end|J%%EndFeature.
4.9
This modification will also be of help to users with limited RAM space,
since to install Expression-PS requires 96k. (If space is really tight,
another 96k can be retrieved by Quit-ing the printer driver after
installation, since only its module is required once set up.) If your
PostScript driver is Version 2, you should edit its text file PrDataSrc
in a similar manner and then run the program PrSquasher to generate a
compressed version of the data file PrData. Unless you are using
ExpressionPS, you must add the relevant Acorn–PostScript font transla
tions to the end of the PSprolog file for any additional fonts that you
buy. You should also add the PostScript names to the commented (%%) list
at the top of the same file.
4.9
The bureau will either use the MS-DOS Copy command on a PC (or compat
ible) to send the file to the phototypesetter via the serial port, or
via a Macintosh using Apple File Exchange or DOSMounter. They will need
to be told that your files are PostScript and it will also help them to
know how many pages there are and what sort of size the files are; any
graphics in a file greatly increases its size and thus takes longer to
transfer at typically 2400 baud. PostScript files can be truly massive:
100K or more for a complex A4 magazine page with quite simple graphics
is not uncommon. You need to decide whether you want bromide or film
and, if the latter, whether you want positive or negative output (this
option can also be set with Expression-PS). Typical current prices for
an A4 page are £3·50 for bromide for next day completion (£5·30 same
day) and £6·50 (or £9·50) for film. We use bromides at a medium
resolution of 1,270 dpi for most of our work and to be frank there is
little point in going higher for most purposes.
4.9
One tip to finish with. Generally, I have found it safest to break long
documents down into smaller units. With the fairly complex layouts used
in a magazine, it can even make sense to print each page separately so
that if a fatal PostScript error is thrown up at the bureau, you can at
least go back and focus on the guilty page. This may seem fiddly but the
cost can quickly mount up with repeat trials and anyway the bureau
cannot afford to be tied up with endless experiments. On the other hand,
they will be happiest, once you’ve gained confidence, to have the files
in slightly larger chunks of between, say, 5–15 pages, depending on the
project.  A
4.9

4.9
Careware Disc Nº 4
4.9
Tristan Cooper
4.9
Careware Disc No. 4 is another excellent compilation of Public Domain
software, providing a combination of applications, demonstrations,
utilities, games and other entertainment. There is comprehensive
documentation on the disc which will help you get the most benefit from
these programs. The memory required by each application is shown after
the name, below.
4.9
!Bin (16K) − This is a RISC-OS dustbin to run on the Archimedes desktop.
As it provides instant file deletion, rather than storing files away for
later removal, it is a good choice for floppy disc users. If you want to
delete a directory, however, you must Select All the files in it then
drag them to the bin.
4.9
!Projector (488K) − This animation must be run in mode 15 in order to
give the correct speed and the right colours. The author, Malcolm
Banthorpe, gives us a wide screen projection of three, essentially blue,
birds that gently swan around their window. The action is smooth and
impressive and shows what can be done using a combination of Euclid and
Mogul. Although acting as a background task, a 1 Mbyte machine is not
going to have much left for anything else.
4.9
!SeriaLink (200K+) − This utility is for those who wish to transfer
files from Archimedes to BBC. The documentation is clear and explicit.
Note that a cable will be required to connect the machines via their
RS423 ports.
4.9
!Sparkplug − is provided to expand some archived files.
4.9
!Invade (32K) − If you need any distraction from your various desktop
tasks, this pretty little space invader will cruise back and forth above
the Icon bar. Zap with the mouse at your peril!
4.9
!Pelmanism (24K) − This old, old favourite card game surfaces in desktop
form. As you might expect, you have to match pairs of cards together −
but it must be a precise match i.e. including colour, which was news to
me !
4.9
!Wander (32K) − The quick-witted will spot the Cleesian name reference
here. If you’re bored with the birds flying around or need a change from
a certain Deskduck (see Careware 2) then try these cute little goldfish
that swim around the backdrop, blowing bubbles.
4.9
Info − provides important instructions for most of the programs on this
disc.
4.9
PCDirV09h (128K) − a very well presented and implemented utility for
reading IBM PC format floppies. When installed, an extra floppy drive
icon appears on the icon bar, labelled A: which may be used just like
the Archimedes floppy drive. You will be prompted for IBM PC discs and
may then transfer files − via RAMdisc for speed − onto ADFS floppies or
your hard disc. Likewise, ADFS files can be copied onto PC discs. PC
file extensions will be converted to an appropriate ADFS file type e.g.
.TXT becomes FFF, .BAS becomes FFB and vice versa. Furthermore, files
can be dragged straight from a PC disc to an application such as !Edit
and back again without the need for an intermediate ADFS disc. This
utility is very well documented, works perfectly and must be worth
several times the cost of this Careware disc on its own. (For a later
version of !PCDir, see Careware Nº7. Ed.)
4.9
Tunes.1 − a small selection of numbers from Genesis, Queen and Super
tramp, very well arranged by Richard Millican.
4.9
Tunes.2 − a selection of classical and traditional pieces from Tom
Measures including some Mozart, Haydn and Rossini.
4.9
Note that the Archimedes will drive external MIDI instruments to give
vastly superior sound quality compared to the internal speaker.
4.9
Convert − consists of several programs which will convert files between
Interword, PipeDream, View and Wordwise. It does this by converting
files to a common ‘liberator’ format, which may then be converted to any
of the other four formats.
4.9
FKeystrip − This BASIC program will produce function key strips on any
Epson compatible printer. It will print out 5 strips on a normal fanfold
sheet. Note that you may need to issue *IGNORE depending on your printer
settings otherwise the whole lot will be on one line!
4.9
ScrBlanker − This module will ‘switch off’ your screen display if the
computer is left unused for a certain time, thereby discouraging the old
problem of ‘burn-in’ of the screen phosphors. The default time is 600
seconds which can be altered with *Blanktime t , where t is a time in
seconds. If there is no keyboard or mouse activity after this time, the
screen blanks out, returning immediately a key is pressed or the mouse
moved.
4.9
Scrnfade − two BASIC programs for Modes 13 & 15 which can be used to
fade out a screen image.
4.9
Summary
4.9
Where can you buy this much excellent software at such a low price and
support charity at the same time? If you’re not already buying Careware
discs, now is the time to start.  A
4.9

4.9
Careware Disc Nº 6
4.9
Tristan Cooper
4.9
Careware Disc Nº 6 is an Archive compilation of Public Domain software,
including a combination of applications, utilities, games and music.
There is sufficient documentation on the disc to get them running; in
many cases a Help option is offered in the Menu window. !Sparkplug is
provided to expand those that have been archived. The memory required by
each application is shown after the name, where appropriate, below.
4.9
Hangman − You’ll need to expand this onto a blank disc, as it is quite
massive! An excellent implementation of this old favourite game,
including excellent graphics, showing considerable attention to detail.
You can add to the existing word lists or even make up your own using
!Edit.
4.9
Lineof5 − Run from desktop, this is a very simple game in the same vein
as Connect4 but it is remarkably difficult to beat the computer.
Addictive and infuriating − you’ll hate it, often!
4.9
Polymos − This is another huge suite of files that must be expanded onto
its own disc. This ancient game uses pieces made of 5 squares in
different configurations which must be assembled into the grid. Playable
on many levels of difficulty to suit all ages, this demanding game
should be part of your collection.
4.9
Music − contains twelve classical pieces from Schubert, Chopin,
Beethoven and others; plus seven more modern pieces from various
composers. Tom Measures has once again produced some very pleasing
arrangements.
4.9
1stExtra (32K) − If you have any existing WP files that you want to use
with First Word Plus (version 2), this utility will convert them quickly
and efficiently. You install it on the icon bar, drag files to it and
follow the menu options. It’s very user friendly and converts both to
and from First Word Plus format.
4.9
App_Maker − What an excellent idea! Click on the icon, enter a new
application name (and size if necessary) and App_Maker will automati
cally create your !Boot, !Run, !Sprites and !Help files for you. You can
then load these into !Paint, !Edit etc to tailor them to your needs.
Very useful indeed and well documented.
4.9
Evaluate (16K) − This is a desktop utility which will evaluate any
mathematical expression that you can give it. At first sight, this looks
very elementary but take a look at the Help file − this is a sophisti
cated utility which performs just about any maths functions you can
imagine and you can tailor it by adding your own functions.
4.9
StickyBD (80K) − It’s very easy to find the desktop cluttered with open
directories and the files you want hidden somewhere in the morass.
Here’s the solution − you can pick any entry out of a directory window,
drag it to the backdrop where the icon will ‘stick’, ready for later
use. A neat trick − if you collect the various icons down one side of
the screen, it’s rather like having an extra icon bar.
4.9
SysUtil (96K) − There is no way I can do justice to this utility in a
few lines! It’s own text file telling you all about it is 13K long! In
essence, it provides a wide range of desktop utilities including adfs
functions; file finder; save function for system data, character set,
configuration, sprites; directory manipulation; First Word Plus
functions; and much more.
4.9
RFSMod − a desktop utility for use with Computer Concepts ROM podule
giving the commands Free, Compact, Map and Podules.
4.9
Summary
4.9
If one is offered something at a very low price, it’s easy to disregard
it as being of little worth. If you are in any doubt as to the value of
Archive’s Careware discs then I strongly recommend you to invest in at
least one. Take the time to give it a worthy test − and then send off
for the rest of them.
4.9
At £7.00 a disc (£6.00 to Archive subscribers), these discs are
seriously anti-inflationary.  A
4.9

4.9
Silent computing − Is it possible?
4.9
Tord Eriksson
4.9
Silence is golden, especially when working in a small crowded room where
everyone is using a computer, each with a fan, or external, fan-cooled
drives that send you up the wall with their buzzing. Add to that a
couple of laserprinters and dot-matrix printers....
4.9
Kill the fan!
4.9
The first problem for me was my noisy SCSI drive. This had worked
flawlessly since it arrived by post, except for the din from the fan.
After I realised that the fan tried to force air into a box that didn’t
have any exit holes for the air I drilled some holes in the lid and
disconnected the fan. Now there was some air circulation through the
box, anyway.
4.9
To improve matters even further I stood the drive on its end, but a
friend, who knows computers better than most, told me to stop that
immediately as the disc’s bearings and other moving parts are made for
sideways or flat mounting − anything else might be harmful. Having
become a bit worried about excess heat that might harm the drive I
reconnected the fan until I found the ultimate solution:
4.9
There are small thermostatic switches commonly found in fire alarm
systems etc. These are either closing or breaking circuits. The
switching temperature is typically 50 or 70° C in a fire alarm system
(they are made in a wide range, with a switching range of around 10
degrees − to stop them from switching on and off all the time and
wearing out prematurely).
4.9
A switch that closed at 70°C was, in my mind, perfect to put in series
with the fan circuit. Lowering the drive to the lower mounting holes,
probably intended for a high capacity drive, made room for the switch on
top of the drive, with the sensitive surface against the upper drive
surface, held in place by a piece of Armaflex foam. You have to bend the
connectors on the switch as otherwise there is not enough room. Test the
circuit by heating the switch with your soldering iron, with the power
on to the drive. When the thermostat is heated, the fan should start and
run for a couple of seconds. Until now the fan hasn’t started up as I
seldom use programs that use the drive intensively, but it’s nice to
know that it is there when it is needed. I also fitted a dust-filter
outside the fan, just to keep the inside clean. (I haven’t checked with
Oak but I’m pretty certain that doing this would invalidate your
warranty. Ed.)
4.9
No impact printers!
4.9
The next step to silent computing is getting rid of noisy impact
printers, such as daisywheel printers and dot-matrix printers, or put
them in another room where no one is forced to listen to the racket.
4.9
Most laserprinters emit ozone, that is harmful to your health, usually
have a noisy fan and are quite expensive. The modern ink-jet printer are
quiet and less expensive than lasers, but are they good enough for a
small office or the dedicated amateur?
4.9
Canon BJ-330 − Top of the range
4.9
Having used a KX-P1124, a typical 24-pin dot-matrix printer, for a year
or so, I have found the print quality when printing Impression files
quite amazing, good enough for the odd fanzine (fan magazine? Ed) or
other non-commercial work. It has a weakness and that is NOISE and lots
of it!
4.9
So when Canon Sweden kindly lent me a BJ-330, their biggest ink-jet
printer, suitable for up to A3 format, I unpacked the huge boxes
eagerly.
4.9
Everything taped down
4.9
The amazing number of pieces of reinforced tape that holds everything
down on the printer and sheetfeeder must surely be gross overkill, but
certainly nothing comes adrift!
4.9
There were three manuals included, one for us Swedes, one for French,
German and English users and one Programmer’s Manual in English. All
these were flawlessly translated from Japanese; quite a feat!
4.9
The printer is quite handsome in grey plastic, with logos and control
panel text in a darker grey. The only coloured items to be found are the
yellow and green LEDs that adorn the control panel!
4.9
No low-level control
4.9
In contrast to the earlier bubble-jets from Canon (the BJ-10e and the
BJ-130e) there is no possibility of low-level control of the printer, so
the printer driver for the BJ-130e, available from EFF, does not work.
Instead, the built-in Epson LQ-850 emulation is used with an Archimedes
computer, as with my old Panasonic printer, so I didn’t change a thing
on the computer, just set the dip-switches on the printer according to
the manual.
4.9
The printer can have two font cards, so in addition to the fonts built-
in, you can add a number of fonts. Very useful for First Word Plus
users, but of little importance to Impression users.
4.9
Printing
4.9
It is imperative that the printer is on-line before you tell the
computer to print a document, otherwise it refuses to function. This is
not so with my dot-matrix printer, but on the other hand that doesn’t
flush the print buffer if you abort printing (making a mess of the next
print job) − so it is just a small inconvenience: To get things going
you abort the printing, set the printer on-line and start the printing
job once again.
4.9
Printing by dropping on the RISC-OS printer icon is the fastest I have
seen! Printing Impression files is another matter − it will not enter
Guiness Book of Records − but it is not the printer’s fault!
4.9
The printer outpaces an A3000!
4.9
As the printer still is faster than my A3000 manages to send the bits to
the printer, the printer head parks every five lines or so, leading to
striped images, especially when printing large illustrations. Reading
the PRM and the Impression manual and following their advice didn’t help
− no amount of Fontcache nor a huge system sprite area will solve the
problem (An A540 would!).
4.9
The solution is to let the printer driver print to a file first, then
send the finished bit-image to the printer. An A4 page can easily become
bigger than 800K so you have to use a huge RAM-disc or your hard-disc
for a perfect result.
4.9
To get the optimum result, you should use the LQ-850 emulation set to
360 x 360 dpi. If you want to use less ink, you just use the control
panel to set the printer to HS, high speed. It makes the images a bit
grey, but that might be the only solution if the paper doesn’t soak up
all the ink! When the ink is fresh it normally is quite wet and needs to
dry before using. So standard fan-fold paper isn’t really up to it. I
guess laser printer paper would be perfect.
4.9
The sheetfeeder
4.9
As my fan-fold paper wasn’t useable, the ink spreading radially in the
paper to make the result a mess, I had to use the sheet-feeder.
4.9
This is very straight-forward to install and functions perfectly, even
with just one sheet of paper in the bin. There is even a possibility to
fit a second bin, if need be. In short, flawless in operation!
4.9
Conclusion
4.9
I have never used a quieter printer than the BJ-330, nor one that could
print on such big paper (a laser that could do it would cost a small
fortune!).
4.9
Using it for draft-printing is a pleasure indeed, as it really flies and
the sheet-feeder certainly works well.
4.9
To make originals for printing it is perfect, even if it isn’t as fast
as a Laser Direct (far from it!). I don’t think you could see the
difference between a page printed with a good laser printer and a page
printed with a BJ-300 (for A4) or a BJ-330. I have never seen blacker
printing and, with the right paper the result is perfectly all right for
professional work.
4.9
The only thing that I did not like was the dip-switches in the back. I
have to lean over the printer to change them and they are so very small!
Why not have all controls up front?
4.9
Proof!
4.9
It is so good that I’ve sent these two pages to Paul for inclusion in
next Archive as a full-spread illustration. Try to see any difference
between it and any other page!  A
4.9

4.9
Unfortunately, I couldn’t use them, as Tord’s English needed a little
adjustment. Take it from me that the printout quality is impressive for
a non-laser printer − although I must say that I could tell the
difference even between that and a 300 d.p.i. laser. Ed.
4.9

4.9
ShowPage − Poor Man’s PostScript!
4.9
Tord Eriksson
4.9
For some years now, PostScript has been synonymous with DTP and CAP
(DeskTop Publishing and Computer Assisted Publishing) because this
graphics programming language was developed by Adobe in 1982 just in
time to be used by Apple on the then revolutionary Macintosh.
4.9
It has its origin as a programming language for complex three-dimen
sional databases (as used in CAD programs) called “Design System”. It
then developed into “JaM” (for John Warnock and Martin Newell) at the
famous Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (where Windows, Icons, Mice and
Pointers were conceived). This was used there as a multi-purpose
language in experimental applications as diverse as VLSI design and
graphics.
4.9
John Warnock, the leading man behind PostScript started, together with
Chuck Geschke, a company called Adobe Systems Incorporated in 1982, that
developed the language into a graphics description system and an
interpreter for raster based printers such as typesetters and laser
printers.
4.9
A flavour of Forth
4.9
Having grown out of a language that inherited many features of Forth, it
still keeps to Reverse Polish Notation, that is, you write “12 8 + 20 =”
and not “12 + 8 = 20” or “0 0 moveto” not, as in BASIC, “MOVE(0,0)”.
4.9
This is probably the origin of the name of the language, as you add the
operand as a post-script.
4.9
Showpage − a PostScript interpreter
4.9
Computer Concepts, famous for their Impression DTP and fast “hard wired”
laser printers, have found a niche for turning a dumb, low-cost laser
printer into a powerful PostScript printer. They do it by making an
Archimedes do the heavy work of interpreting the PostScript file and
then sending the bitmap over to the non-PostScript laser printer, such
as the LaserDirect Hi-Res.
4.9
The main problem with PostScript lasers has been that they are either
very slow or very costly, or both. Some printers can be upgraded to
PostScript standard by adding a PostScript card, probably costing
anything from a couple of hundred pounds to thousands. The typical price
difference of a standard laser printer with and with-out PostScript
being £500 for the cheapest and £1000 for the bigger ones − upgrading
later is always more expensive!
4.9
So, as an alternative to upgrading your printer, you buy Computer
Concepts’ Showpage and can still print your own and others’ PostScript
files at a reasonable pace, for less than the cheapest PostScript
upgrade since Showpage retails at £149.00.
4.9
A big package
4.9
From Computer Concepts arrived a big box, slightly dented, containing a
disc, with the interpreter, some utilities and some PostScript fonts, a
manual about the interpreter, a number of registration forms etc and two
big books from Adobe. Both these books were entirely made with Post
Script, no cutting or pasting performed manually or with the DTP system
involved. The result is very impressive!
4.9
Tutorial and cook book
4.9
One of the books is a thick reference manual that contains all the
operands etc that are used in PostScript, with numerous examples that
shows the language to be a pretty complete programming environment, even
if it leans heavily towards graphical applications − I wouldn’t
recommend it for arcade-style games!
4.9
The other book is more interesting and consists of two books rolled into
one: A tutorial that takes you from the first simple programming example
(a line) to the rather complex workings of the image operator and how to
get the most out of your Apple LaserWriter, the most widely available
PostScript printer.
4.9
Part two is a “cook book” with complete recipes on how to make arrows,
dash patterns, arcs (elliptical or not), how to set text as arches, in
vertical columns, with small capital letters, how to create new fonts or
modify old fonts etc.
4.9
“Program 18 / Making Small Changes to Encoding Vectors” is extra
pleasing to a Swede as the text is a quotation in Swedish, made by one
of the big names in typography, Valter Falk.
4.9
So there is much to learn about PostScript, especially how to make the
most of it because all languages, artificial or not, take a long time to
master.
4.9
The interpreter in use
4.9
Not having a PostScript printer, nor even a laser, I was curious about
how the complex sample files, that are found on the disc, would print
out on a ink jet printer (Canon BJ-330). As the printer is printing
faster than my A3000 manages to send the bitmaps, I always send the
bitmap to a file first before dumping it to the printer. A primitive
printer-spooler, I know, but it prevents the printers time-out parking
the head while printing the images, as that always leads to a minute
misalignment of the printing head when restarting. With my 24-pin
printer, there is no problem because it is much slower.
4.9
I can say, truthfully, that the results are amazing, both due to the
complexity of the pictures themselves and due to the fact that the BJ-
330 isn’t made to print in this way. Even a 24-pin matrix printer
produces good enough output to be used for proofing of PostScript
documents.
4.9
Many of the sample files supplied are so complex that there is no way
that you could produce them with any art package I know of. It shows how
PostScript can be used as a creative tool, as well as a way of describ
ing a piece of text.
4.9
Especially endearing is the way you can use a letter or a word as a
mask, so that another text or pattern shines through, the mask being
semi-opaque or whatever you want. I would love to have that function
added to !DrawPlus, my favourite utility!
4.9
Next: Let us use PostScript!
4.9
To learn a language properly, you have to use it for a long time. I will
give you a few small programming examples in the next part of this
exploration into the world of PostScript.
4.9
(To avoid stepping on any sore toes and because US companies love to
sue, I hasten to add that PostScript is registered trademark of Adobe
Systems Incorporated.)  A
4.9

4.9
(This is a VERY professional package and I reckon that Jonathan Marten
could have made quite a bit of money by selling it professionally. (Mind
you, Acorn might have had something to say about that!) Still, if you
are using Draw1½ or DrawPlus, why not send Jonathan something to show
your appreciation − especially if, like Barry, you are using it in the
course of your work. Draw1½ is available on Shareware Nº34 but this
latest version, DrawPlus, is so good that we are making it available as
one of the programs on Careware Nº13 which is now available. Ed.)
4.9

4.9
The Archimedes Speaks
4.9
Robert Chrismas
4.9
Robert looks here at PEP Associates’ SpeechSystem (£25) and Superior
Software’s Speech! (£19.95 or £19 through Archive). Two more speech
programs are now just about ready: ARCticulate from 4th Dimension and
DT-Talk from DT Software. Robert will look at these and report back as
soon as he can.
4.9
Children can understand and speak English long before they learn to read
and write. For most people, speech remains a more ‘natural’ form of
communication. It is not surprising that so much effort has been devoted
to enabling computers to produce and recognise speech. Computing experts
soon found that it was easier to get computers to speak than to
recognise and ‘understand’ speech. (The same is true for people but for
different reasons.)
4.9
The clearest computer speech is obtained using samples of a person’s
speech, in effect using the computer as a digital recorder. Whole
sentences can sound very natural but sampled sounds require lots of data
so the number of sentences you can store is limited. It is possible to
store individual words and to combine them to make sentences (you may
remember Acorn’s early attempts to do this using Kenneth Kendall’s
voice). However the vocabulary is still limited by the size of the
computer memory. Also, once you begin to work with words instead of
whole sentences, the speech begins to sound mechanical because of the
difficulties of reproducing the natural patterns of rhythm, pitch and
stress which usually reinforce the meaning of the utterance. Even the
sounds of words may change in natural speech to facilitate pronunciation
of some sound sequences.
4.9
Spoken English must include a high level of redundancy. If we listen to
a sixteen stone male for Newcastle speaking over the telephone and a
seven stone female cockney with a lisp shouting in the street outside
the window we can understand both while still hearing the differences
between them. Provided that the sounds have certain similarities with
normal human speech, they are comprehensible even when it is clearly
non-human, as anyone who has listened to Dr Who or Mr Punch well knows.
4.9
Phonemes
4.9
In English, we recognise about 50 unique sounds which allow us to
identify words. These sounds are called phonemes. The phonemes are
divided roughly into:
4.9
    consonants  e.g. the ‘b’ sound in ‘bat’
4.9
    vowels         e.g. the ‘o’ sound in ‘dog’
4.9
If a computer can utter these phonemes reasonably accurately, it can
produce recognisable speech with an unlimited vocabulary.
4.9
Since these sounds have a fairly simple structure, it is not necessary
to work with fragments of sampled speech − the computer can synthesise
the sounds.
4.9
The programs
4.9
Superior Software and PEP have both produced programs which speak using
synthesised phonemes. The packages sound different and they have
different features. Each package includes:
4.9
• Documentation
4.9
• A desktop front end
4.9
• A module to convert English words into phoneme codes
4.9
• A module to convert phoneme codes into sounds
4.9
The packaging and documentation
4.9
Speech! comes in a CD pack with a single page of documentation and
advertisements. The text refers you to help files on the disk which are
more extensive. It is important to read the help files if only to learn
that you should not attempt to write to the (protected) disk. The help
files contain enough information to use the programs but they assume
some background knowledge. In the worst case, the text refers to the
‘second formant centre frequency’ without explanation. You can get some
idea of what it is by changing the frequency and listening to the
effect, but more information would be helpful here.
4.9
SpeechSystem has a 54 page A5 manual. The manual is well written and it
includes a helpful introduction to the linguistic background to the
program. It is disarmingly frank about its limitations. In a discussion
of the difference between the sound of ‘lead’ in ‘lead pipes’ and ‘lead
singers’ it says that the pronunciation depends on the meaning of the
sentence which ‘...places the problem firmly in AI country, and beyond
the scope of SpeechSystem in its current form’. Once you have installed
SpeechSystem by entering your name, you can back up the disk. This form
of protection seem to be the best compromise between user friendliness
and copyright protection.
4.9
Neither package enables you to create speech fragments which can be
freely distributed, so you can only give your creations to other people
who have bought the programs.
4.9
Speech! front end
4.9
If you load the main program, !Speech!, and drag a text file to the
program icon, the file will be read aloud. A window allows you to enter
a line of words or phonemes to be spoken. The window also gives you
control over the pitch, speed, level and both the second and the lower
formant frequency (they affect the vowel sounds).
4.9
The !Sp_Dict application allows you to create new Speech! modules with
modified pronunciation dictionaries. !Sp_Demo shows off the features of
Speech! and includes talking pictures. Finally there is a drill and
practice spelling program (educational theorists collapse in horror!).
4.9
SpeechSystem front end
4.9
Like !Speech! !PEP_Text will read text files dropped on to the icon. The
text appears in a window with a set of tape recorder like controls.
!PEP_ Text can also speak words (or characters) as you type them, as I
type this this into First Word Plus it is speaking each word. Another
option causes any system text under the pointer to be read, so, for
example, you can point to the file names in a filer window and hear each
one spoken.
4.9
!PEP_Word allows you to create/edit a pronunciation dictionary. There
are also two demos which you are free to distribute. One of the demos is
included on the Archive 4.8 program disk; the speech quality is
identical to SpeechSystem.
4.9
Words to phonemes translation
4.9
    Beware of heard, a dreadful word,
4.9
    That looks like beard and sounds like bird,
4.9
    And dead: it’s said like bed not bead,
4.9
    For Goodness’ sake, don’t call it deed!
4.9
    Watch out for meat and great and threat,
4.9
    They rhyme with suite and straight and debt
4.9
In written English, spelling is determined by etymology not pronuncia
tion. Of course, many words are spoken as they are spelt and most of the
rest are covered by rules which leave only a few exceptions to be learnt
by heart. People use rules to help spell words they have no difficulty
pronouncing. For computer speech, the text is given, the rules must
indicate how to pronounce the words.
4.9
SpeechSystem seems to have some powerful rules built into the program.
If it fails to pronounce a word accurately you can create and edit a
translation dictionary which is contained in !PEP_Lib using the
!PEP_Word program. The dictionary is a list of words and the phoneme
equivalents. The dictionary can only handle complete words, so if a word
can take a number of suffixes and/or prefixes, each instance must be
entered. The documentation avoids drawing attention to this requirement
by using place names for its examples.
4.9
In the Speech! program, dictionary entries can deal with parts of words
and they may include wild cards so one rule can cover many instances.
For example ‘i>#e_IY|’ makes the ‘i’ before ‘<consonant>e’ long as in
‘line’ and ‘time’. Entries can even specify changes in pitch within a
word. Because the Speech! dictionary is more versatile than that used by
SpeechSystem, I think it would be possible to use it to create a
dictionary to cope reasonably with words from a foreign language.
4.9
Changing the dictionary is less straightforward than with SpeechSystem.
You must copy !Sp_ Dict, then use !Edit (or similar) to change the
dictionary in the application. The format given in the !Help file is
wrong but it is easy to work out the correct rules by examining the
file. When you have changed the dictionary, SP_Dict will create a new
Speech! module.
4.9
As they are supplied both programs seem to aim for ‘Received Pronuncia
tion’ (RP), the accent associated with educated people, the south east
of England, the BBC World Service and Radio 3. Since this is a long way
from my native Hampshire accent it was quite brave of Paul to send me
these programs. With both programs, you can produce more accurate speech
(or regional accents) by spelling phonetically (spelng foneticly).
4.9
Speech using phonemes
4.9
Both programs allow you to enter speech as a sequence of phonemes. With
Speech you use *SAY for words and *SPEAK for phonemes. SpeechSystem’s
*UTTER allows you to embed phonemes in ordinary text but the method of
indicating phonemes is less compact.
4.9
*SAY TOKEN    Speech! words
4.9
*SPEAK TOWKOXN
Speech! phonemes
4.9
*UTTER TOKEN    PEP words
4.9
*UTTER {{ /t//ow//k//ax//n/}} PEP phonemes
4.9
The programs use different letter codes to indicate phonemes. Speech!
uses its own codes, apparently based on, but not identical to, those
used by the BBC version of the program. Some of the sounds are rather
hard to place. The help file gives ‘OH’ as the first vowel sounds in
‘colour’ and ‘polo’; but these are different sounds in RP and most
regional accents. SpeechSystem uses a standard code called ‘Arpabet’.
The documentation includes a table to convert from the International
Phonetic Alphabet into Arpabet, so you can easily translate the
pronunciation given in a dictionary into a form which the program can
use.
4.9
SpeechSystem allows you to specify the overall pitch of the speech as
part of a SWI. To change the pitch of individual phonemes you must alter
bytes in the phoneme buffer directly.
4.9
Speech! offers OSCLIs and SWIs to set the overall volume and pitch as
well as the formant frequencies. You can include numbers within a
phoneme sequence to control the pitch of each phoneme, values 1−8 are
speaking pitches, 10−57 cause the phoneme to be sung. Creating a song is
fun but, to keep the tempo vowels must often be doubled or trebled. Even
a short song takes a long time to enter, but it is possible to get
results much better than the example, ‘Daisy Daisy’. (This was, no
doubt, inspired by HAL in 2001!)
4.9
In everyday speech, a change in volume, stress, is used to emphasise
meaning. Neither program makes it easy to copy natural speech stress
patterns but changes in pitch can be used for similar effects.
4.9
Quality
4.9
I wrote a program to allow listeners to compare the sounds of the
programs and used twelve people, who had not heard the programs before,
as subjects. To try to standardise the test, I use RP for all phonetic
speech and I did not use any variations in pitch which would have
depended on my own preferences. The results of blind trials showed that
all the subjects found that Speech! sounded more ‘natural’ than
SpeechSystem. This was probably influenced by the way Speech! runs the
words together while SpeechSystem pauses between each word, but the
pronunciation of individual words was also a factor. Speech entered as
phonemes was not preferred significantly to words translated into
phonemes by the programs, which indicates that both programs did a
reasonable job of translating words into phonemes. When subjects heard a
single word with no clues to its meaning they found it very difficult to
identify the word when it was spoken with either program (about 30% of
words were correctly identified). Afterwards, many commented that both
programs sounded very mechanical. One said that Speech! sounded just
like the BBC version and was surprised that the Archimedes could not do
any better. I think I could have made some improvements to the examples
provided with Speech! by tinkering with pitch etc, but there were not
many ways of improving the SpeechSystem examples.
4.9
Summary
4.9
I enjoyed using both programs and I think they are good value. Both
programs sound mechanical but Speech! less so than SpeechSystem. Speech!
allows more variation of, and better control over, pitch and sound.
SpeechSystem has better documentation and a better front end and the
standard phoneme codes are more convenient.  A
4.9

4.9
A Taste of APL
4.9
Alan Angus
4.9
In my first article I introduced the idea of using I-APL to explore the
basic idea of functions. The example below uses the i function to assign
the numbers 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 to variable S. The outer product operator “o.”
can then be used to make a multiplication table based on S, “So.xS”, or
an addition table, “So.+S”. Other tables can be made by using S with
another vector such as B shown in the examples.
4.9
In the following examples, a set of values for a quadratic function are
stored in variable V and this is used with R, which consists of the
integers from −1 to 8, to give some crude graphical representations of
the quadratic function. The “o.” operator is used to set up tables of
all the combinations of elements of V with those of R.
4.9
The first table uses “=” to test for equality, plotting 1 when they are
equal and 0 when not equal. The second table uses a ‘less than or equal
to’ test to produce a bar chart and the third table is a little more
clever in that it uses indexing on the string ‘*’ to plot with the ‘ ’
and ‘*’ characters instead of 0 and 1.
4.9
I-APL does have access to better plotting facilities than this through
the VDU drivers, but because of the implementation method used, it is
rather slow. The screen dump shows a plot of a triangle transformed
several times about the centre of the axes.
4.9
SETUP
4.9
SHOW C
4.9
REPT 5
4.9

4.9

4.9

4.9
SHOW plots the shape on screen using data stored in matrix C. The shape
is transformed by applying a transformation matrix T using matrix
multiplication, e.g “T+.xC”. This is used in line 5 of the procedure
REPT which applies the transformation T a given number of times,
plotting the new shape each time.
4.9
The procedures TIN and CIN can be used to input new transformation and
shape matrices.
4.9
I am not trying to teach APL here, and so I will not explain the
operation of these routines in any detail. The strange symbols used by
APL are off-putting at first, but they are a powerful extension to the
familiar symbolism of mathematics and well worth exploring. Get hold of
a copy of the I-APL interpreter and an introductory book on APL and dive
in!
4.9
All the functions listed here, plus others for saving screens to disk
and making OSCLI calls etc, are in the workspace PLOT. I make no claims
for originality in anything I have done. Some of the examples are lifted
directly from Kenneth Iverson’s “Introducing APL to Teachers”, others
are based on material from Howard Peelle’s “APL, An Introduction” and
the I-APL manual.
4.9
Norman Thomson’s book, APL Programs for the Mathematics Classroom, is an
excellent source of ideas and routines for using APL in mathematics
education. This book, as well as many others, and the I-APL interpreter
are available from, I-APL Ltd, 2 Blenheim Road, St. Albans AL1 4NR.  A
4.9

4.9
DTP Clip Art
4.9
David Crofts
4.9
This article covers a variety of issues inherent in using Clip Art with
Impression and other DTP packages.
4.9
A few months ago I wrote to Paul requesting assistance with sources of
Christian Clip Art to use in Church publications. He placed a request in
the Help! section and help duly arrived. My grateful thanks to all who
responded. I hope that this article will in some way provide assistance
for them in return.
4.9
I intend the text to be of general as well as specific interest, so all
DTP Clip Art users please read on!
4.9
Sources
4.9
Clip Art is available commercially and through Public Domain libraries.
Non-computer material is also available but will need to be scanned. A
large selection can be found outside the Archimedes world in PC format −
in fact the most comprehensive library is available, at a price, in PC
Vector (Draw) format. It is possible to translate some of these formats,
so I will include details of which format to choose later.
4.9
Formats
4.9
The two formats for Archimedes images are Paint or sprite format and
Draw or object-oriented graphics. In the PC world, these correspond to
‘bit-mapped’ and ‘vector’ graphics respectively. Sprite/bit-mapped
images are much more widely available and cheaper than Draw or vector
format, but suffer from the problem of ‘jaggies’ − rough edges when
enlarged and printed.
4.9
Draw / Vector graphics images are much smoother and produce almost
infinitely scalable images, and correspondingly better results.
4.9
It is worth mentioning here that converting sprites into Draw format is
now possible with Midnight Tracer. Early reports suggest that it has
limitations, it may be worth waiting for reviews before trying. (See the
comments on page 14. Ed.)
4.9
Archimedes clip art
4.9
The first place to look for material is general clip art. Many images
with non-religious subject matter can be relevant. A great deal is
available through Public Domain libraries such as Archive Shareware and
Careware! APDL of Cleveland, in addition to a wealth of sprite and
scanned images include two religious sprite format discs. Midnight
Graphics publish a five disc set of Draw format Clip Art − non of it
specifically religious. Others of general interest are G.A. Herdman −
Draw and sprite; Micro Studio who are building up an impressive
collection library of Draw and Sprite pictures, many with education in
mind; and David Pilling who has some interesting sprite images, some in
colour.
4.9
Don’t be surprised when collecting Public Domain material to receive
identical files from different libraries! Public Domain seems to mean
that anybody can sell you anything so long as it is free of copyright.
4.9
PC material
4.9
Another valuable source of material is the PC world. Some PC clip art is
translatable into Archimedes format. I will detail my experience so far.
4.9
Firstly, by far the most comprehensive selection of religious Clip Art
available, as far as I have been able to ascertain, is from MGA Softcat
of Rye. Their Religious Special Edition Clip Art is available in
Micrografix.DRW and other formats. It converts into Draw / vector
images, but at a price! (£149.95 +VAT) The selection would satisfy most
needs of most people for quite a long time. I have a photocopy of the
selection, but have not been able to afford to purchase it! At a more
realistic price is their set of Christian Symbols in bit-mapped format
at £29.95.
4.9
Religious Clip Art is available on subscription from Beulah Graphics of
London SW8. It can be supplied in TIFF, PCX and IMG format, all bit-
mapped (sprite) images. The range of images is mixed, the majority
specifically religious or biblical. Their PCX files presented transla
tion problems, but fortunately they were able to provide TIFF as an
alternative format.
4.9
I have seen an advert only for Vector Clip Art from “Words and Pictures”
of Banbury.
4.9
Converting from PC format
4.9
To convert from PC to Archimedes format it is advisable to have to hand
PC Dir, Translator, a set-type utility and Paint.
4.9
In my (limited) experience, with advice courtesy of Jim Markland, it
seems best to try to obtain images in TIFF format.
4.9
1. If necessary, unpack these using the PC Emulator (with Beulah
Graphics at least).
4.9
2. Move them across into Archimedes media using PC Dir (available on
Careware 7).
4.9
3. Use Set-type (Shareware 19 or 23) to change to TIFF type (always
assuming the file was a TIFF file in the first place!). This is filetype
FF0.
4.9
4. Load Translator (Careware 7) onto the icon bar.
4.9
5. Double click on TIFF file. The screen will probably change to a
strange grey mode and a box containing the converted image appears.
4.9
6. Click <menu> over the image. Run along the Save line to the list of
save options. I usually choose ‘Whole (scaled)’ as the images may well
need some alteration before saving (who needs an oval moon?).
4.9
7. Enter a filename into the box which appears, then, after <select> or
<return>, the mouse pointer appears with the image completely under your
power. A box giving the coordinates of the image you are about to save
is appended to the pointer for precise scaling. It is possible to alter
it to any shape size or scale you require (clever software − Translator)
before clicking <select> to save it. (If you have made a mistake with
the filename this is the moment of truth.)
4.9
8. GOTO 5 (who needs structured programming?) UNTIL all converted.
4.9
Using PC files in DTP
4.9
On conversion (not religious!), some files’ whites are not ‘Persil’
bright. They seem to have a grey dotted background which is indistin
guishable from white to the naked eye. Usually this only becomes evident
on printing, when the image, rather than merging neatly into the white
background of the paper, suddenly acquires a grey rectangular outline.
Nasty! The solution? Load Paint. Use the replace colour option (a
tipping up paint pot) to fill the ‘grey white’ with real white. Now your
image is squeaky clean.
4.9
Other material
4.9
Pictures and features with a Christian theme, which could be scanned or
cut and pasted with real glue, are available on subscription from two
main sources: Church News Service and Christian Education Ltd. The
material includes monthly titles, headers, captions, articles for adults
and children, pictures, puzzles and jokes. (I preferred the CNS material
for a British audience; CEL is Australian and has a distinctly trans-
Atlantic feel.) Also Kevin Mayhew of Rattlesden produce three books of
“Instant Art for the Church Magazine.” Again, these could be scanned.
4.9
One respondent sent in some clever cartoons his sister had drawn. So any
local artist may be pressed into service, even if the thought of a
computer terrifies them.
4.9
See other articles for those who have experience of scanners.
4.9
What next?
4.9
Now those magazines, posters, leaflets, publicity materials, children’s
worksheets, service cards hymn sheets will be enlivened and brightened
by illustrations. For an example of use, Charles Constantine sent in his
Church Magazine liberally illustrated with pictures and adverts. More
generally available are the Patterns for Worship sample service cards
from Church House Publishing which show how service material can be
vitalised with illustrations.
4.9
Sources
4.9
MGA Softcat, 41, Cinque Ports Street, Rye, East Sussex. TN31 7AD (0797-
226601)
4.9
Beulah Graphics, 276, South Lambeth Road, London. SW8 1UJ (071-622-8924)
4.9
Christian Education Ltd., Unit C, 41, Dace Road, London. E3 2NG
4.9
Church News Service, 37b, New Cavendish Street, London. W1M 8JR
4.9
APDL Public Domain Library, Mr Peter Sykes, 96, Lanehouse Road,
Thornaby, Cleveland. TS17 8EA
4.9
Kevin Mayhew Ltd., Rattlesden, Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk. IP30 0SZ
4.9
Words & Pictures, 30, Parsons Street, Banbury, Oxon. OX16 8LY (0295-
258335)
4.9
Midnight Graphics from Dabhand Computing Ltd., 5 Victoria Lane,
Whitefield, Manchester. M25 6AL
4.9
G. A. Herdman Educational Software, 43, St. Johns Drive, Clarborough,
Retford, Notts. DN22 9NN (0777-700918)
4.9
David Pilling, PO Box 22, Thornton Cleveleys, Blackpool. FY5 1LR.  A
4.9

4.9
Minerva Business Accounts
4.9
Mick Burrell
4.9
The Archimedes computer is a highly sophisticated machine and there is
now a wealth of software available to utilise its capabilities to the
full, but it still has not found a large following in the IBM stronghold
of the business world possibly because of the lack of choice of business
accounts software. Enter Minerva with their new business accounts
package.
4.9
Initial impressions
4.9
Business accounts software, by its very nature, must be very complex but
Minerva have worked hard and have, I feel, been successful in making it
easy to use. Perhaps more than any other software, an accounts package
will be used by people with little or no interest in computers other
than as a tool. With this in mind, Minerva have presented the package
well with an easy to follow (if a little daunting) manual. It comes as
five separate modules − Invoicing, Sales Ledger, Purchase Ledger,
Nominal Ledger and Stock Management (as yet no Wages package) − each of
which will stand alone or integrate with any others you may have.
4.9
The manuals are well written in the now familiar style of tutorial and
‘main’ sections. Having read Paul’s comments about a reviewer who
admitted to not reading the manual, I dived straight in to the tutorial
section.
4.9
The programs seems to run quite happily from wherever you store them. I
have put them in a directory called Accs_Bus in the root directory of my
440‘s hard disc. Opening the directory and double clicking on the
application’s icon installs it on the icon bar. Clicking on the icon
takes you into the main menu where you accept the date taken from the
internal clock or enter another date (as is the case if you follow the
tutorial).
4.9
Each of the manuals follows the same format and often uses very similar
data so that if you have bought more than one module, the operations
soon become familiar. Minerva have included some mistakes for you to
type in and then they show you how easy it is to correct them! A good
start − I was quite capable of making my own mistakes and it was nice to
know already how to put them right. The manual is very insistent that
you work through the tutorial section before trying to tailor the
package to suit your own needs. This is well worth the effort, particu
larly if you are familiar with similar packages on PCs, as the tutorials
aim to explore most of the facilities available. In practice, I felt
that even having worked through the tutorials, this package offers so
much that I would still be discovering ‘new’ facilities after quite
prolonged use. With this in mind, unless this review runs to a similar
length to the manual, it can only really be my initial impressions.
4.9
Invoicing
4.9
The main screen shows which module you are working in, the date and, in
this case, the invoice number you are looking at or working on. The
‘card’ itself is a smaller area which scrolls around quite happily under
this heading. This is not multi-tasking and does not use the conven
tional windows but this presents no problem (to me at least!) and
returns you to the desktop when you have finished. Typing in data is
quite straight forward. From the name you put on the invoice (a minimum
of three letters is all that is required for the system to find the
customer) the system checks to see if it is an account that already
exists and offers you the choice of opening a new account, making it a
cash customer (meaning one you will probably only deal with this once),
one or more customers who fit the description you typed in or re-
entering the data.
4.9
For example, if you typed in ‘Fre’ as your name, the system would offer
‘Free Range Eggs Ltd’ as well as ‘Fred Bloggs PLC’ if these were already
on file. You can then choose between them as they will be labelled ‘A’
and ‘B’. Had you typed in ‘Fred’ then only ‘Fred Bloggs PLC’ would have
been selected. The option to re-enter data is provided just in case you
have made a mistake! One small problem occurred here − pressing <R> to
re-enter details worked fine, but pressing <r> left me with a blanked
screen which I could not get out of. This aside, entering invoice
details is quite straight forward.
4.9
When you print an invoice, multiple copies are available, labelled
Invoice, Despatch Note, Office Copy etc. depending on your requirements.
These are set up when you get round to designing your own invoice. If
you do not require a despatch note, you can set up the system so that
you do not have one! One or two things are fixed however. For example,
the system uses things like Invoice Number and so each invoice must have
one! Not a serious limitation I hope. For the system to work properly,
you should have two drives or a hard disc. Again, I would not imagine
anyone prepared to buy and use this kind of software not having that
hardware.
4.9
Setting up your own invoice system is not a task to be undertaken
lightly. This has nothing to do with the software − it should be
approached with the same care and attention you would use to design any
of your business forms. You do, however, need to consider how the system
will work best for you. Can I add to Minerva’s plea − work through the
tutorial first. I did, and yet I still made a few errors and had to
start my design again. Only time will tell if a design is perfect once
set up. An ‘Invoice Reformat’ option is, however, provided which will
allow minor modifications even after the files have been in use. The
system seems to be so versatile that it will probably cater for most
needs with very little work.
4.9
Sales and purchase ledgers
4.9
Whilst these can again be stand alone packages, they will link to the
others and, by their very nature, are similar to each other in task and
operation. The tutorial sections are again very informative and take you
through finding a particular customer/supplier by both account number
and name, both methods being very fast. As with invoicing, a very
detailed analysis is possible to keep track of the flow of goods into
and out of your business (but see stock later) and leads to very
detailed management reports (again see later). Movement around the files
is similar to invoicing, although purely as a personal preference, I
would like to use one key to gain access to the individual accounts and
another to return to the menu. The <escape> key is used for both, but I
have to admit to getting used to it even in the short time I have used
the package.
4.9
One feature I liked particularly was the possibility of using of a small
negative discount (2p in the example) to correct for a small over
payment by a customer. I have never really understood why customers do
this, but they do! In some accounts programs, you have to use the
positive/negative adjustment procedure to make things balance. This
effort is rarely worth 2p!
4.9
All of the usual features are here allowing simple reports of who owes
you what and for how long (or vice versa!) but it can go far beyond
this. (The manual has four pages devoted to explaining how reports can
be produced.) One important report menu option is ‘Second Criteria’
which is set as default for a balance greater than zero, but is used
with variables like ‘lim’ (the current credit limit) to produce reports
of customers whose balance exceeds their credit limit by an amount you
specify.
4.9
Reports generally can be short, medium or long, referring to the amount
of information given. The short gives you the basic facts, i.e. the
account number, name and amounts outstanding currently, for 30 days, 60
days and over 90 days. The long report prints in addition to this,
details like the full name and address, your contact within the company,
their credit limit, turnover and details of each transaction. In short
this exploits what a computer is good at − fast accurate data retrieval
to enable you to keep track of your business.
4.9
Nominal ledger
4.9
The nominal ledger program carries on this theme. In it you can record
every transaction your business makes but this can, of course, be
automatically taken from the sales and purchase ledgers if you have
those modules. The ledger will allow over 8000 accounts (I have taken
Minerva’s word for this!) and comes with some of these set up to help
get you started. You can print a profit and loss, balance sheet or a
trial balance at any time. Comprehensive report facilities are available
as well, and your accounting period can be set up to be anything from 12
to 18 months, so that if you are setting up a new business and will have
your accounts on computer from day one, then this package can handle the
first year trading being longer than one year.
4.9
Assuming that more people will have access to the computer than you
would wish to have access to your accounts, a password facility is
provided.
4.9
The tutorial is again well laid out and first of all introduces you to
some accounts which, being used as headers for profit and loss reports,
cannot be altered. They are a black card with white text to distinguish
them from the normal blue card with white text. (Anyone using a
monochrome monitor may find that this difference is not so obvious.)
4.9
Making alterations is much the same as in the other modules. Entries to
the cash book are quite straight forward, as are the journal entries. As
you would (probably) expect, the credit and debit totals for journal
entries are shown at the bottom of the screen and must balance before
you leave the posting.
4.9
It is, however, the reporting facilities that make this module really
worthwhile. If you do your own trial balance manually or have watched
your accounts clerk do it, you will know that hours can be spent looking
for tiny amounts which stop the ledger balancing! To have this available
at the touch of a key must make computerising your accounts worthwhile
on its own! Period end and year end accounts are just as easily produced
making it possible to have complete financial control over your
business. I know of some businesses (no names naturally!) where the end
of year figures their accountant produces are always a surprise. With
this package you can produce these simply and quickly whenever you
require them.
4.9
Stock management
4.9
At first sight, this module may not seem to fit in with the other four
but Minerva are at pains to point out that they have called it Stock
Management rather than Stock Control. The difference is in the amount of
information this module is designed to supply when compared to more
mundane stock control programs. The facilities you would expect are all
here − stock levels, valuations, minimum levels etc but it also provides
facilities to print out orders to send to suppliers and what is,
according to Minerva, a unique facility to produce a pareto graph to
‘highlight those stock items which account for a majority of your
cashflow and hence require careful monitoring to maximise efficiency of
your finances’.
4.9
In use, the program not only gives you accurate details of the items you
currently hold in stock but makes suggestions as to what should be
ordered and in what quantity. These are based on things like maximum and
minimum stock levels you have supplied, as well as stock movement and
delivery lead times. A nice touch is that the manual tries to explain
how the computer makes these predictions so that you can tailor it to
suit your own business and its way of working. At all times, you still
retain control over what the computer is about to do. For example, when
it suggests an order to a supplier, you can manually adjust the amount
if you wish to. This allows you to deal with seasonal fluctuations, new
product launches, sales variations due to the weather or a thousand
others things that a computer could not possibly predict but which you
have to cope with to run a successful business.
4.9
If your business is in buying and selling items then this information
will be vital and, of course, the computer will keep accurate records
and not rely on the tapping your head “it’s all up here” approach. This
is a good stock management program and it will do the job admirably.
4.9
Conclusions
4.9
It is likely that anyone interested in this package will be considering
computerising their manual accounts or possibly starting a new business.
Readily available information on performance gives you extra control
that over your business − the value of this cannot be over stated.
Minerva have made this their main objective in producing these packages
and have succeeded. Together, they will make your accountant’s audit
much simpler and quicker which will, of course, save you money −
probably more than the cost of the package on the first audit! If you
are currently using a similar package on a P.C., then I doubt that there
are useful facilities you will find missing in Minerva’s version.
4.9
A package of this complexity cannot be learned from scratch in five
minutes and to get the most out of it will require time and a little
effort. If you have experience of similar packages, the transition
should be relatively painless. A well written and presented piece of
software in which I found very little to complain about.
4.9
Well done Minerva!  A
4.9

4.9
Shareware Disc Nº39
4.9
Geoff Scott
4.9
Shareware Nº39 has two sections; an educational one and a ‘various
utilities’ one which occupies about twice as much space.
4.9
Algorithms
4.9
In a directory called Algorithms are four mathematical programs.
4.9
The first, GraSort, demonstrates to the user in a visual manner four
popular algorithms for array sorting. It demonstrates the RISC-OS
HeapSort SWI, a simple shellsort routine, an inefficient but useful
SelectSort routine and the fastest known QuickSort routine.
4.9
PatMatch is a program holding three routines which were specifically
designed to search for a text string within a piece of text. For those
of you who are interested, the three search routines are a brute force
method, a Knuth-Morris (KMP), and a Boyer-Moore.
4.9
The third program, Travels, claims that it will “demonstrate the modern
simulated annealing technique” to attack the ‘travelling salesman’
problem. This type of problem is said to fall into the category of what
a mathematician would call NP-Complete − taking a long time for a
realistic number of variables. In English, this program will attempt to
find the shortest route from the start, through several cities and then
home again.
4.9
ZerFunc is said to search for the complex zeros of an arbitrary function
of one variable using the Muller method. The Muller method was chosen
over the Newton-Raphson one as it is more robust. As supplied, the
program will graphically display the zeros of a polynomial, although
full instructions are contained within the program if you find it
necessary to change the function calculated.
4.9
The four programs within this section were all produced very well, with
graphics used throughout to good effect. The only bad point I can make
is the lack of multi-tasking, although all four return you safely to the
desktop.
4.9
Chemistry
4.9
This program is an A-level science tutor which concentrates upon the
building blocks and elements of matter − although to a far higher stage
than GCSE. I took a brief look at this program and it is written in a
way that makes it a pleasure in some ways to work with. However, the
lack of a quit option is a bit of a drawback, although one can be added
simply by altering the error handler. In short, if you are doing A-level
chemistry − or even GCSE for that matter − I would recommend this disc
just for the one program.
4.9
Desktop
4.9
The desktop directory is the holder of four draw files which are
intended to help the user to access a menu option several layers deep by
providing a reference chart which may be printed. The files can be
printed out using the standard printer drivers, although on the screen,
I noticed that they looked slightly cramped and confusing − a fact that
would be replicated on paper. The use of these files would depend upon
how confident you are with the Archimedes desktop and the Welcome suite
of software − they could be ideal in an educational establishment or
while introducing someone to the machine.
4.9
Economics
4.9
The two programs within this directory are for calculating compound
interest and retail prices. The two programs have been written with many
functions and if a use exists for them then they would be perfectly
adequate.
4.9
Graphs
4.9
If you are fed up of graphs with very strange scale intervals then this
program is for you! After looking at the values of the data, the program
will fit the graph neatly onto a mode 0 screen.
4.9
Maths
4.9
7K worth of a mathematical routines library, with many functions
including part-arrays, hyperbolic functions, sines, cosines, cartesians
and virtually anything else you could ever need.
4.9
Photo
4.9
Two programs: Flash aids you in setting a close up exposure and DofField
which aims to provide information about the depth of field of a shot.
4.9
BackSpr
4.9
The first application in the utils directory is BackSpr which takes a
sprite and scales it to fill the screen and places the picture within a
window at the back of the desktop, creating a backdrop effect.
4.9
Copier
4.9
This is an update of the disc copier on Shareware disc 2. It has a more
colourful and graphical layout than the original version. It would
appear that the workings of the program have been left alone, apart from
making changes to recognise ‘E’ format discs and forcing the target disc
to be formatted.
4.9
Compacted screens sequence creator
4.9
This program appears to have been written to facilitate the construction
of sequences of pictures which have been compressed in some way. After
looking at the modules provided, it is a shame that the front end for
creating the sequences is such a violent beast to tame, but the effects
I created were outstanding.
4.9
FileUtils
4.9
Fileutils is an application which provides many different utilities for
file handling and various other file-associated operations. Operations
currently supported are: change file type; a file search which will also
search in any archives it encounters; a find space routine, the purpose
of which is to find if enough space exits on a disc to hold the intended
program.
4.9
FontConv
4.9
Amongst my collection of discs I knew that I had a font or two which
came from a PC and, after digging them out, I left the machine to
convert one of them. Firstly, the program informed me that every byte
was an un-known command, and then it wouldn’t let me return to the
desktop − forcing a reset. (It could be useful if you had the right type
of PC fonts. Ed.)
4.9
FPEcalc
4.9
A floating point calculator which does not multitask, requires system
sprite memory and appears not to do anything I tell it. This program is
in fact a 19 digit reverse-polish notation calculator with many
functions.
4.9
STtoRhap
4.9
When I bought Tracker and found that it had no printout option, turned
to the PD world looking for something to enable me to print the contents
of my sound tracker file. STtoRhap appears to be the answer. Sound
Tracker files − not Tracker − can be converted into a format that
Rhapsody will understand so that they can then be printed. I wouldn’t
however recommend trying to play the music from Rhapsody without making
a number of changes to the score first.
4.9
Help reader
4.9
This program can be used to prepare help applications for other
programs. It has many features such as jumping position using menus or
buttons and multitasking in its own window. Excellent for anyone new to
a program.
4.9
Overall
4.9
This shareware disc has been carefully compiled and, for £3, you can’t
really afford to miss it if you like the look of the programs on it.
They are all thoroughly documented and can all be used with relatively
little experience.  A
4.9

4.9
Risc User Compilation Disc
4.9
Edward Hollox
4.9
When the RU icon is double clicked from the filer window, the icon
installs itself on the icon bar and so provides information and a way of
loading the selection of programs.
4.9
!ADPC
4.9
Which stands for “Advanced Desktop Presentation Creator”. This utility
installs itself on the icon bar and allows you to sequence numbers of
sprites using different methods, such as scroll, explode and bounce, by
simply dragging the files to the program window. You can then save the
sprites, in a compressed form, in an application directory so that
double clicking that application gives you the series of sprites
interconnected by the different display methods.
4.9
However, you can only sequence mode 12 or mode 13 sprites, which limits
the program. Not only this, but the program also tended to spout errors
when saving which led me to believe that the program was not thoroughly
tested. Well tried, but could do better.
4.9
!aMaze
4.9
The only game on the disc provided welcome respite from the disappoint
ment of the previous program. The game is difficult to describe, but is
basically a sliding block puzzle where up to four players can slide and
then move their piece around the maze to collect various objects. The
first person to collect the objects and return to base has won. Objects
can be selected to be either from a dungeon, food, computer equipment or
detective equipment. There is also a help facility.
4.9
Although simple, this game has good graphics and is certainly a break
from shoot-’em-ups. Very good indeed. This game is also included on the
Risc User Games Disc, which was reviewed in the January edition of
Archive.
4.9
!Appmaker
4.9
A simple application which creates a basic sprite file and a !run file
for a application of a specific size. Could be useful, but definitely
nothing special.
4.9
!BEdit
4.9
Yawn! Yet another desktop front-end for the BASIC Editor. This one is no
different to the millions of other ones I’ve seen in the Public Domain.
4.9
!Clipart
4.9
Draw files of a computer, the Union Jack, a guitar and some bells for
inclusion in DTP.
4.9
!CMOSEdit
4.9
Double clicking this, results in a window full of numbers which
apparently can be altered to change various CMOS settings. Although
there is a help window, I’d stick to !Configure on Applications Disc 1.
4.9
!Encode
4.9
A desktop utility which, by simply dragging files to its icon, can code
and decode files using a password system. Simple and very useful.
4.9
!Index
4.9
Only the index files for Risc User volume 3 for use in Arcscan.
4.9
!KeyStrip
4.9
A non-desktop utility which prints fully labelled keystrips on a 9 or
24-pin printer. Useful if, like me, you don’t like making your own.
4.9
!Music
4.9
A selection of music for use with !Maestro, including pieces from
Gilbert and Sullivan, Debussy and Bach.
4.9
!Newfonts
4.9
Three outline fonts, Chancellor, Katyo and Chinese, which are a useful
addition to any DTP package. The fonts are high quality, though they
would tend to be used for fancy headings rather than body text. Good,
and far cheaper than elsewhere.
4.9
!Palettes
4.9
Colour palettes for better output on colour printers.
4.9
!PC_Disc
4.9
This program, very similar to the program !PCDir on Careware 5, allows
the user to read, write, and format MSDOS discs on the desktop. If you
have !PCDir, this is nothing special, but is certainly handy if you have
the PC emulator and nothing like this program.
4.9
!StickyBD
4.9
This program allows the user to put icons on the background of the
desktop, and to change that normally grey background to a pretty
picture. A very good program, but it is in the Public Domain, so if you
want it, it is bound to be on a Shareware disc or in any PD library’s
catalogue.
4.9
!Textprint
4.9
This allows text to be printed on an Epson FX-80 compatible printer in
the background on the desktop, and is similar in presentation to the
Acorn printer drivers. Could be useful.
4.9
!Watchdog
4.9
This excellent utility allows the computer to be vigilant for viruses on
a hard or floppy disc. It has three levels of operation, selected from
the desktop icon. Grey is no watch, amber stops *Wipe operations and red
prevents all disc write operations. There is also an option for cleaning
the free space of discs to stop viruses hiding there.
4.9
Conclusion
4.9
Although this is a reasonable disc with some good programs, £12.95 seems
rather expensive. If you do not want the outline fonts, you could try a
disc from a good public domain library or a Careware or Shareware disc
from Archive. They would have programs of equal qualityand you can pass
PD discs on to your friends.  A
4.9

4.9
Chess Revisited
4.9
Tord Eriksson
4.9
There is one game that has become a classic for computer simulations −
and is classic in itself − chess. From the long gone days of ZX80s and
IBM 360s to today’s supercomputers and IBM SPARCstations, there has
always been a chess program around. Surprisingly few have been available
for the RISC-OS user and only one has had a wide distribution − C.
Granville’s !Chess, available from David Pilling, P. O. Box. 22,
Thornton Cleveleys, Blackpool, FY5 1LR, UK. The price is £5.99, VAT and
p&p inclusive.
4.9
Not perfect
4.9
Version 1.00 of !Chess played a competent game of chess but could not in
any way be called perfect. It did not realise that, when considering
promotion, the option of turning a pawn into something other than a
queen is sometimes desirable. Neither did it count the time elapsed very
well as a two hour game easily ended up with two minutes or less on the
clock!
4.9
If it got into a tight spot, it started to play like a randy young lad
on his first date: The grand moves only made the prospects of success
even more remote. Looked at positively, it certainly made the game-
playing shorter but things were to change...
4.9
Enter version 1.28
4.9
The latest version looks exactly like its predecessors, fully multi-
tasking, fully WIMPy etc, but it certainly is a different kettle of
fish.
4.9
I did not have too much difficulty in beating the earlier versions but
this version is too much for me. It under promotes, it doesn’t loose its
marbles when in a tight spot and it seems to me play more quickly. As
the clock now functions as advertised, it really can get your adrenalin
flowing, as the computer is always miles ahead of you!
4.9
No field test
4.9
I have tested the earlier version of !Chess against chess programs run
on Amstrad CPC 6128 and a Spectrum but I have not done it this time as
the conclusion is all too evident:  a massacre!
4.9
The verdict − unbeatable!
4.9
There are still a few things that could be added to make it perfect −
3D-view, maybe battling pieces as in Battle-Chess (probably
copyrighted!) etc, but at the price it is offered I must say that it is
surely unbeatable!
4.9
As usual, David Pilling will upgrade your version, if it has been
legally obtained, to the latest version, by just sending him a blank
disk and an SAE, with enough stamps on! That is better service than that
by any other software producer I know of!  A
4.9

4.9
Maddingly Hall
4.9
Gareth Bellaby
4.9
Maddingly Hall is a text adventure game from Minerva. The game is set in
1932 and you take on the ‘Bertie Wooster’ character of Bertie Hall who,
having lost money betting on the horses, decides to pay a visit to
Maddingly Hall and his rich Aunt Agatha. Also currently staying at
Maddingly is Veronica, the young woman Bertie loves. Bertie hopes to win
the heart of Veronica and persuade Aunt Agatha to part with a little of
her money. Apart from these two general objectives, the aims and puzzles
of the game are only revealed as the game is played.
4.9
Maddingly Hall needs 544K to start up. It is run from the desktop and
will not disrupt existing programs if enough memory is available. The
game is written in BASIC and is copy protected.
4.9
The game includes a picture for every location in the game. However, the
graphics are occasionally inconsistent with the text, for instance
displaying a non-existent window, and there is no facility to turn the
graphics off.
4.9
The game is not that difficult and, in that sense, could be suitable for
even a novice text adventure player. I say ‘could be’ because the game
is let down by some extremely poor programming.The first failing of the
game is in its treatment of the many independent game characters. For
instance, one game character somehow managed to sit down to dinner
whilst simultaneously being trapped in a secret passage and a second
game character went through a locked door. Such anomalies completely
undermine the spirit of the game.
4.9
Secondly, Maddingly Hall is let down by its often infuriating parser. No
synonyms are given for nouns, although a few abbreviations are allowed.
The parser unreasonably rejects certain words so that, for instance, you
may be informed that you are wearing some “casual clothes” but the
parser will only accept the word “cloth”. Most importantly of all, the
parser demands certain words which are not given in the game text. For
example, at one point during the game you will need to refer to a
“brickwall” but this word is not used anywhere in the text.
4.9
The game employs a reasonable level of humour, is based on a good
scenario and has a number of interesting puzzles and frustrating red
herrings. In particular, I like the way in which the nature of the game
unfolds only as it is being played.
4.9
However, I cannot really recommend the game because I found it extremely
annoying to be forced to struggle with the parser instead of getting on
with the game.  A
4.9

4.9

4.9