Archive Magazine CD 1995/Archive Magazine CD 1995.iso/text/magazine/volume_07/issue_08

Text File | 1995-06-25 | 258.5 KB | 5,740 lines

Table 1
7.8
The Vision Revealed
7.8
After months of speculation, Acorn’s new vision is at last revealed −
and what a vision! It has taken me quite a time to get my mind round the
importance of the openness and adaptability of the new system. The
projects that could be launched with Risc PC at the heart are legion.
7.8
For the last 2½ years, i.e. since before the launch of the A5000, Acorn
have been working on the “Medusa” project. It must have been SO
frustrating for them to keep quiet about this new project when people
(and that includes me!) were criticising them for their lack of vision.
They really DO have a Vision for the Future − it’s plain for all to see
− but I get hints that there are more surprises in store for us Acorn-
watchers.
7.8
One other change that Acorn underwent at the inception of the Medusa
project was “integrated project management”. In other words, instead of
having the boffins upstairs, the marketing people on the middle floor
and the accountants downstairs, etc, they have had everyone who is
involved in the project in any way working together in adjacent offices.
It seems to have worked well!
7.8
Congratulation to Acorn on this exciting new (to us!) project. We wish
you well for the future... especially those of us whose whole livelihood
depends on Acorn’s success!!!
7.8
Yours, excitedly,
7.8
Products Available
7.8
•  Acorn Risc PC − Details of Acorn’s new generation computers are given
in the Special Archive Supplement that you will have received with this
issue of Archive. If you have a friend, colleague, etc who you think
would like to know about this new range of computers (which represents
such a major change in Acorn’s philosophy), just phone the Archive
office and give us their name and address and we will be happy to send
them a copy of the Archive Supplement. The sooner people find out about
Acorn’s new generation machines, the better.
7.8
“How can I get a Risc PC?” − Ah, now you are asking! If you look at the
Risc PC’s specification, upgradability and price, it doesn’t take much
working out to realise that demand is going to outstrip supply by orders
of magnitude − well, it will be unless Acorn have also made a MAJOR
change in their production policy! They will be ramping up production as
fast as possible to cope with demand and they are talking about having a
production capability of “several thousand units per month” but,
realistically, the only thing to do is to choose a supplier (and
hopefully, many of you will choose NCS!) send in a cheque or give us
your credit card number as soon as possible and wait (im)patiently in
the queue.
7.8
•  Acorn Risc PC − Archive special offer (1) − As a special (limited)
offer to Archive subscribers, we are offering a free ARM700 upgrade to
the first purchasers of a Risc PC from Norwich Computer Services. What
this means is that when we send you the computer, we will enclose a
voucher and will let you know when the ARM700 upgrades become available
(current ETA is Autumn ’94). You will then be able to send your ARM610
processor card back to us with the voucher and we will send you an
ARM700.
7.8
•  Acorn Risc PC − Archive special offer (2) − As an alternative special
(limited) offer to Archive subscribers, we are prepared to supply the
first Risc PCs on credit card without making our normal 3% service
charge. (We have to pay 5% to Visa!) This means that you can simply
leave your credit card number with us until your place in the queue
comes up. We will then supply the computer and debit your card and you
don’t have to worry about when to transfer money to your current account
from your deposit account (or sell those Acorn shares!), or whatever.
7.8
• Acorn Risc PC memory upgrades − Because the new Risc PC uses standard
SIMM memory packages, we can buy them from Mac or PC suppliers and get a
reasonable price. For example, if you have a 2Mb Risc PC, you can buy a
4Mb SIMM through Archive for £150 and end up with a 6Mb computer (i.e.
the existing 2Mb SIMM is in one slot and the 4Mb goes in the other). The
8Mb SIMMs are £300 each, the 16Mb SIMMs are £640 and the 32Mb SIMMs are
£1350. We haven’t yet found a supplier of 64Mb or 128Mb SIMMs but we
will in due course! (These are all VAT-inclusive Archive subscriber’s
prices.)
7.8
•  Ancient Egypt − Chalksoft have produced a package designed to help
with National Curriculum in History Key Stage 2. Through journeys back
along a time track, children (aged 7−11) visit seven important times/
locations and learn about aspects of life in Ancient Egypt. There are
factfiles at each location, activities to tackle on-screen and a quiz to
test knowledge. The cost is £25 +VAT from Chalksoft.
7.8
•  CDFS and PhotoCD upgrade − Cumana tell us that the upgrade to their
CD-ROM filing system, that makes it PhotoCD compatible, is now
available. The cost of the upgrade depends on what system you have got,
so the best bet is to contact Cumana who will send you a four-page
leaflet about how to upgrade.
7.8
•  ClickArt Education Image Pack is the first of a series of licensed
conversions from a leading US company supplying clipart for PC and Mac
markets. For £65 plus £2 p&p (no VAT) from Matt Black, you get 2,000
full-colour drawfiles in forty categories from Animals to Zodiac. The
pack includes a printed index and Hugh Eagle’s !PickAPic image-finder
application to aid the location of images.
7.8
•  Diggers − This is a game of cunning, money-making and subterranean
adventure. Diggers has 33 levels to explore, encourages you to break the
Zargon bank and comes with “a sophisticated Zargon Guide Book”. Diggers
costs £29.99 from Millennium Interactive Ltd or £28 through Archive.
7.8
•  DrawChanger is an application from DEC_dATA which lets you edit the
colour and line attributes of existing drawfiles. You can change a
drawfile to monochrome, to negative, lighten/darken it, tint it,
recolour even a single graduated file, thicken all thin lines, change an
object’s attributes without going through umpteen menus, create anti-
aliased sprites larger than memory, create thumbnail sprites, etc.
DrawChanger uses an icon-based method of building filters that allow
many other effects to be achieved. The ability to batch-process files
and use the OLE transfer system with Impression Style & Publisher are
also included. The price is £34 +VAT from DEC_dATA.
7.8
•  Equate is a mathematical graph-plotting program from PTW Software. It
claims to provide ‘every facility required’ at GCSE and A-Level
Mathematics. Its features include: up to 32 equations on each graph,
Cartesian, parametric or polar graphs, auto or manual range setting,
zoom in and out, trace function to obtain coordinates, plot a tangent or
calculate a gradient at any point and an intersect function to find all
possible intersections of two equations. Equate costs £15 inclusive from
PTW Software and this includes an unlimited site licence.
7.8
•  Maths Circus from 4Mation is a collection of twelve puzzles, each
with five levels of difficulty, and 24 activity sheets and suggestions
for away-from-the-computer activities. The overall aim is to help
children develop their problem-solving skills and although the problems
are “mathematical” in that they require reasoning, they are not drill-
and-practice exercises. The level? Well, 4Mation say that the simplest
levels can be used by pre-school children while the hardest may give
even the teachers a difficult time! Maths Circus costs £27.50 +VAT (£30
through Archive) for a single user copy or £55 +VAT (£60 through
Archive) for a site licence.
7.8
•  Minerva price drops − Minerva software have reduced the prices of
some of their software. Home Accounts is now £34.95 inc VAT (£33 through
Archive), Ancestry is £59.95 inc VAT (£56 through Archive), Desktop
Office is £69.95 inc VAT (£65 through Archive) and Keyboard Trainer is
£69.95 inc VAT (£65 through Archive).
7.8
•  NStore 4.0 is the latest version of HS Software’s National Curriculum
record-keeping package. It has been “greatly enhanced” and updated with
all the SATs from Levels 1 to 10. It now has report-writing facilities
to allow you to comment on a child’s performance under a whole range of
headings. NStore 4.0 costs £44.95 inc VAT from HS Software, and existing
users can upgrade for £16.95 inc VAT.
7.8
•  Payroll Manager v3.0 is now available for the new financial year 94/
95. The upgrade fee is £25 inclusive but, for recent purchasers, the
upgrade is free. Simply return your disc and a cheque to Silicon Vision.
7.8
•  PC Card improvements − Aleph One have increased the specification AND
reduced the price of their 486 cards for Archimedes computers. The
processors are now 486SLC with clock speeds 25MHz or 50MHz, the memory
is upgradable to 16Mb (initially supplied as 4Mb). The card has an
interface for a ‘local’ IDE drive and an optional very-high-speed serial
I/O chip (16550-compatible) and a second serial port. The card has a
custom ASIC which handles the interface to the Archimedes which
increases the I/O speed and gives very high performance from the 50MHz
cpu chip. The Windows driver software is now included in the price and
supports 800×600 pixel screens in 16 colours. There is also some network
driver software which has been field-tested on Netware 3.11 and Windows
for Workgroups 3.0. This is available at £25 +VAT per card with
discounts and site licences for multiple cards − details from Aleph One.
If you want to buy your own SIMMs memory (72pin SIMM ×32 or ×36, 70nS),
you can buy the board without memory. Prices inc VAT are:
7.8
                                     Aleph One      Archive
7.8
486/50MHz (0Mb)  £529  £510
7.8
486/25MHz (0Mb)  £439  £420
7.8
486/50MHz (4Mb)  £719  £695
7.8
486/25MHz (4Mb)  £629  £605
7.8
• (more) PinPoint Datafiles − Longman Logotron have produced some more
datafiles for use in education. They are: The Victorians (KS 2/3),
Festivals (KS 2/3), Diet & Nutrition (KS 3/4) and Far Away Places (KS 3/
4). Each is £12 +VAT from Longman Logotron.
7.8
•  RiscView − This is a stand-alone template editor for RISC OS
applications based on the S-Base template editor. RiscView comes in two
versions, RiscView which will only load and save standard template files
and is intended as an alternative to !FormEd, and RiscView Professional
which will also load and save a new template format. The Professional
version includes provision for styles which act on icons, so that you
need only change the style, rather than all the icons that use it.
RiscView costs £9 (£19 for a site licence) and comes with a textfile
manual while RiscView Professional costs £29 (£69 for a site licence)
and includes a printed manual. The upgrade from RiscView to Professional
is £20 (£50 if you have a site licence) and a demo disc is available for
£1. All prices include p&p (no VAT applicable). Orders and cheques
should be sent to Simon Glass, PO Box 834, Landbeach, Cambridge, CB4
4DG.
7.8
•  Schema 2 − The upgraded version of Schema from Clares Micros adds
various new features including: ability to read Advance files and import
SID files, improved memory use and speed, simpler method for applying
effects to the sheet, better date and time handling, improved graphics,
definition of ‘big’ cells for justified text over a number of lines,
live-linked graphs, data transfer through clipboard as in Advance.
Schema 2 costs £135 inc VAT from Clares or £125 through Archive.
7.8
•  Sensible Soccer − It is long-awaited, I agree, but at last it is
here. Sensible Soccer offers Cup & League tournaments, 100 European
teams, design your own cup tournament, one or two-player action,
intelligent passing, new season team information, new back-pass rule,
red and yellow cards plus suspension and enhanced goal-keeping. Sensible
Soccer costs £25.99 from Sensible Software or £24 through Archive.
7.8
•  Taxan 1095 price drop − The 20“ Trinitron multisync monitor (1095
Plus LR) from Taxan has dropped in price and is now available at £1995
through Archive. This has a dot pitch of 0.30mm and would be suitable
for the Risc PC running at 1600×1200 pixel resolution.
7.8
•  Technical Clipart Collection − PTW Software have produced a clipart
disc for just £7.50 inclusive which consists of Chemistry clipart,
electronic circuit symbols and PCB symbols.
7.8
•  The Spoken Word − This was published last year by Wyddfa Software but
there are now two Extra Pictures Packs at £12 each and an Overlay Pack
(for Concept Keyboard use), also at £12 inclusive. The Spoken Word is an
educational package aimed at National Curriculum AT1 and 21 at Level 1.
It aims to encourage an understanding of the spoken word and to
stimulate an interest in reading. The child can produce bright pictures,
the colours being shown with their written names, and different objects
can be selected from their written names and/or from an outline drawing.
The computer responds aloud by naming both the chosen colour and the
object. The software costs £22 inclusive from Wyddfa Software.
7.8
•  TouchWindow from RESOURCE is an input device placed over the video
screen. It has a 1024×1024 resolution − just point at the screen. It has
all sorts of uses, especially in educational applications, providing an
easy way, for example, to interact with multimedia systems. TouchWindow
costs £279 +VAT from RESOURCE.
7.8
• WorldPort14.4 fax modem − We have found another suitable fax/data
modem which is even cheaper than the portable one we mentioned last
month. It has the same specification except that it doesn’t work from
batteries − but it costs £245 through Archive instead of £270. Also,
contrary to what I said last month, the cable supplied with the modem
will work on A5000 and later computers although not with pre-A5000
computers (i.e. A540 and A300, A400 series computers). It should work
with a Risc PC − but I haven’t got one yet, so I can’t actually try it!
7.8
Review software received...
7.8
We have received review copies of the following: •An Eye for
Spelling (e),   •Ancient Egypt (e),   •Basic WIMP Programming (bk),
•Earthwarp (e),   •Elementary PipeDream (e),   •Gestalt Number (e),
•Lemmings II (g),   •PinPoint File: Dinosaurs (e),   •PinPoint File:
Solar System (e),   •RiscView (u),  •Switch (g),  •Technical Clipart
Collection (e),  •The Spoken Word (e),  •Through the Dragon’s Eye (e).
7.8
e=Education, b=Business, bk=Book, g=Game, h=Hardware, l=Language,
u=Utility, a=Art.
7.8
If you would like to review any of these products, please contact the
Archive office. Potential reviewers will need to show that they would
use the product in a professional capacity or that they have some
knowledge of the particular field.  A
7.8
Government Health Warning − Reading this could seriously affect your
spiritual health.
7.8
I can see you sitting there at home thinking, “Oh, I’d really love to
get hold of one of those new RiscPCs! I wonder how I could get one? I’d
give anything...” (By the way, I have to be honest and confess to a
remarkably similar feeling myself!) For some of us, thoughts of RiscPCs
occupy almost every waking moment. But just stop a minute and ask
yourself, “What is really important in my life? What makes me really
happy? What makes me really feel down?”
7.8
If your house were burning down and you were able to take out only one
item, what would it be? No, the RiscPC is too heavy! Apparently, for
most people it would be something small and personal, something given
by, or reminding you of, someone you love. (Confession time again... I
thought about this one and, for me, it would have to be my 105Mb
removable disc that carries all the magazine articles and a whole load
of other transient data that I haven’t backed up recently!!! But my real
point is...)
7.8
What is really important in your life and mine is the relationships we
have with other people. They are what give us the greatest sense of
happiness, fulfilment and joy... but, by the same token, they are what
make our life most miserable when our trust is betrayed by someone we
love. And have you noticed, too, when your relationship with one person
gets messed up, it often spills over and spoils your relationships with
others?
7.8
Now THAT is why Christianity is so important to me, because it concerns
THE most important relationship that anyone could ever have. If God
exists, and if he made us and loves us desperately, as the bible tells
us, then it is of prime importance to get that relationship sorted out −
it then helps our relationships with other people.
7.8
As Jesus says in John 10v10, “I have come that they may have life, and
have it to the full.” And what did he mean by “life”? Have a look at
John 17v3. He was talking to God, his Father and said, “Now this is
eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus
Christ, whom you have sent.”
7.8
Either Jesus is incredibly self-centred... or he is God. If the latter,
don’t you owe it to yourself to at least read through John’s gospel and
see if it has the ring of truth?
7.8
Paul Beverley
7.8
P.B.
7.8
Fact-File
7.8
(The numbers in italic are fax numbers)
7.8
4th Dimension   P.O. Box 4444, Sheffield. (0742-700661) (0742-781091)
7.8
4Mation   14 Castle Park Road, Whiddon Valley, Barnstaple, Devon, EX32
8PA.
7.8
  (0271-25353) (0271-22974)
7.8
Abacus Training   29 Okus Grove, Upper Stratton, Swindon, Wilts, SN2
6QA.
7.8
Acorn Computers Ltd   Acorn House, Vision Park, Histon, Cambridge, CB4
4AE. (0223-254254) (0223-254262)
7.8
Aleph One Ltd   The Old Courthouse, Bottisham, Cambridge, CB5 9BA.
(0223-811679)
7.8
  (0223-812713)
7.8
Alpine Software   P.O.Box 25, Portadown, Craigavon, BT63 5UT. (0762-
342510)
7.8
Anglia Television    Education Department, Anglia House, Norwich, NR1
3JG. (0603-615151) (0603-631032)
7.8
Atomwide Ltd   7 The Metro Centre, Bridge Road, Orpington, Kent, BR5
2BE. (0689-838852) (0689-896088)
7.8
Castle Technology   Ore Trading Estate, Woodbridge Road, Framlingham,
Suffolk, IP13 9LL. (0728-621222) (0728-621179)
7.8
Chalksoft   P.O. Box 49, Spalding, Lincs, PE11 1NZ. (0775-769518)
7.8
Clares Micro Supplies   98 Middlewich Road, Rudheath, Northwich,
Cheshire, CW9 7DA.
7.8
  (0606-48511) (0606-48512)
7.8
Colton Software (p12)  2 Signet Court, Swanns Road, Cambridge, CB5 8LA.
(0223-311881)
7.8
  (0223-312010)
7.8
Computer Concepts (pp11/18)  Gaddesden Place, Hemel Hempstead, Herts,
HP2 6EX. (0442-63933)
7.8
  (0442-231632)
7.8
Cumana Ltd    Pines Trading Estate, Broad Street, Guilford, GU3 3BH.
(0483-503121) (0483-503326)
7.8
Dabs Press   22 Warwick Street, Prestwich, Manchester, M25 7HN. (061-
773-8632)
7.8
  (061-773-8290)
7.8
Dalriada Data Technology   145 Albion Street, Kenilworth, Warkwickshire,
CV8 2FY. (0926-53901)
7.8
DEC_dATA   P.O.Box 97, Exeter, EX4 4YA. (0392-221702)
7.8
Design Concept   30 South Oswald Road, Edinburgh, EH9 2HG. (031-668-
2000)
7.8
HS Software   56, Hendrefolian Avenue, Sketty, Swansea, SA2 7NB. (0792-
204519)
7.8
  (0792-298283)
7.8
Hybrid Technology   88 Butt Lane, Milton, Cambridge, CB4 6DG. (0223-
861522)
7.8
IFEL   34 Culver Road, Saltash, Cornwall, PL12 4DR. (0752-847286) (0752-
840029)
7.8
Keylink Computers Ltd   2 Woodway House, Common Lane, Kenilworth,
Warwickshire, CV8 2ES. (0926-50909) (0926-864128)
7.8
Krisalis Software   Teque House, Mason’s Yard, Downs Row, Moorgate,
Rotherham, S60 2HD. (0709-372290)
7.8
Longman Logotron   124 Cambridge Science Park, Milton Road, Cambridge
CB4 4ZS.
7.8
  (0223-425558) (0223-425349)
7.8
LOOKsystems (pp25/26)  47 Goodhale Road, Bowthorpe, Norwich, NR5 9AY.
(0603-748253)
7.8
  (0603-764011)
7.8
Matt Black   P.O.Box 42, Peterborough, PE1 2TZ. (0733-315439)
7.8
Minerva Systems   Minerva House, Baring Crescent, Exeter, EX1 1TL.
(0392-437756)
7.8
  (0392-421762)
7.8
Oak Solutions (p6)  Dial House, 12 Chapel Street, Halton, Leeds, LS15
7RN (0532-326992) (0532-326993)
7.8
PTW Software   72 Frosthole Crescent, Fareham, Hampshire, PO15 6BG.
(0329-281930)
7.8
RESOURCE   51 High Street, Kegworth, Derbyshire, DE74 2DA. (0509-672222)
7.8
  (0509-672267)
7.8
Risc Developments   117 Hatfield Road, St Albans, Herts, AL1 4JS. (0727-
840303) (0727-860263)
7.8
Safesell Exhibitions (Sppl)  Market House, Cross Road, Tadworth, Surrey
KT20 5SR.
7.8
Sherston Software   Swan Barton, Sherston, Malmesbury, Wilts. SN16 0LH.
(0666-840433)
7.8
  (0666-840048)
7.8
Sigma Press   1 South Oak Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 6AR. (0625-
531035)
7.8
  (0625-536800)
7.8
Silicon Vision Ltd   Signal House, Lyon Road, Harrow, Middlesex, HA1
2AG. (081-422-3556) (081-427-5169)
7.8
Techsoft UK Ltd   Old School Lane, Erryrs, Mold, Clwyd, CH7 4DA. (082-
43318)
7.8
T-J Reproductions   Unit D, Canada House, Blackburn Road, West
Hampstead, London NW6 1RJ. (071-372-0515)
7.8
Topologika     P.O. Box 39, Stilton, Peterborough, PE7 3RL. (0733-
244682)
7.8
Widgit Software   102 Radford Road, Leamington Spa, CV31 1LF. (0926-
885303)
7.8
Wyddfa Software   3 Preswylfa, Llanberis, Gwynedd, LL55 4LF. (0286-
870101) (0286-871722)
7.8
Xavier Educational Software Ltd  Dept of Psychology, 37 College Road,
Bangor, Gwynedd, LL57 2DG.
7.8
  (0248-351151) (0248-382599)
7.8
XOB   Balkeerie, Eassie by Forfar, Angus, DD8 1SR. (0307-84364)
7.8
Archive Monthly Program Disc Contents
7.8
• Sample program mixing Basic and Assembly language for Francis
Crossley’s article
7.8
• Programs from Paul Hobbs’ Advanced Basic Column
7.8
• Files from Gerald Fitton’s PipeLineZ Column
7.8
• Files from Paul Hooper’s Multimedia Column
7.8
• DrawPlus Keystrokes from Mike Hobbs − to transform plan & side views
to and from isometric
7.8
Tele-Card
7.8
XOB
7.8
Advert
7.8
New artwork
7.8
Oak Solutions
7.8
From 7.7 page 21
7.8
 Risc PC − More Technical Details
7.8
Paul Beverley
7.8
With this issue of Archive, you will have received a copy of an Archive
Special Supplement about the Risc PC. In it, we have tried to explain
the fundamental change that Acorn have made in this latest step in their
computer development. In this article, I will give you some more
technical details of the Risc PC and its associated technology. But I
shall start by saying one or two more things about the philosophy behind
the Risc PC and how it compares with Apple’s latest offering, the Power
Mac.
7.8
Plug-in technology
7.8
The really important message of Risc PC is that it is plug-in, open-
ended technology. To try to illustrate this a bit more than we have in
the Supplement, I have drawn a block diagram showing the parts of the
system which are fixed (indicated by solid lines) and the parts which
are replaceable options (shown in dotted lines) which can therefore
change with the advance of technology.
7.8
As you can see, there is not a lot of the system that cannot be
replaced! The diagram also indicates at a glance, the huge range of
different means of adding to and expanding the basic system. The Risc PC
is really just a key (but a very powerful key) to a vast array of other
computer and allied systems.
7.8
I can hardly wait to see what applications will be designed around it −
and you can be sure we’ll be reporting on it all in Archive magazine!
7.8
Risc PC versus Power Mac
7.8
The point about adaptability and upgradability is illustrated (by using
a contrast) when you compare Risc PCs with Power Macs. As the
comparisons in the Supplement show, the Power Macs are more expensive
than Risc PCs and they certainly don’t have such a good graphics
specification. Also, it shows how far behind Apple are when you realise
that an 8Mb machine isn’t big enough to run their PC emulator − you need
to have 16Mb of RAM to run it properly!
7.8
But the main point I want to make here is that they are fundamentally
different in the way they are marketed. The Power Macs come as three
different models in three completely different cases with three
different price tags. Each model can be enhanced in various ways but
each has a pre-determined limit beyond which you have to sell up and
start again.
7.8
With the Risc PC, by contrast, even if you buy the very cheapest model,
it is completely upgradable to the highest current specification
currently available and, of course, to whatever higher specifications
come along in future.
7.8
Processor technology
7.8
I’m sure that many of you will be interested to learn more about the ARM
technology behind the Risc PC. As explained in the Supplement, the first
Risc PCs will have 30MHz ARM 610 microprocessors. Like its predecessor,
the ARM3, this is a 32-bit RISC CPU with a 4Kb cache, but it has been
further developed into a new family of even higher performance
processors. The 710 will be launched later this year, with an 8Kb cache,
enhanced write buffer and a memory Translation Look Aside Buffer (TLB)
doubled in size. (That was straight from the spec sheet. I’m sure there
must be at least one Archive subscriber who knows what it means, so
perhaps someone would write in and let us know! Ed.)
7.8
Subsequently, ARM Ltd expect to be able to offer an ARM700 with FPA
support, followed by a 43MHz ARM700 version on 0.6 micron silicon, (see
below) and, beyond that, the ARM800.
7.8
In addition to the 4Kb cache, the processor of the ARM610 includes, on
the same silicon, a write-back buffer and Memory Management Unit (MMU),
using a 4Kb page size. These features increase the average execution
speed and reduce the memory bandwidth required by the processor. This
allows the external memory to support additional processors and Direct
Memory Access (DMA) channels with minimal performance loss.
7.8
Processor performance
7.8
The new processor gives Risc PC exceptional performance, particularly in
high-resolution graphics modes (when fitted with VRAM) − approximately
twice as fast as a 25MHz A5000 in 16-colour VGA mode, for example. The
table below shows processor speed (in kDhrystones/second) against other
Acorn computers.
7.8
We can compare the ARM600 with other processors in terms of MIPS −
millions of instructions per second.
7.8
We also have some data, provided by Acorn, showing some processor speeds
which are definitely achievable and some which are predicted for the
next two generations of ARM processors.
7.8
An essential part of speeding up the ARM processors is to reduce the
size of the chips. This is limited by the minimum size of the details
within the chip − it’s a question of improving the resolution of the
manufacturing process. The first ARM chips (ARM2) were manufactured
using what they refer to as “1.2 micron technology” or “1.2µ”. This
refers to the minimum size of components that can be defined within the
silicon chip. Later ARM2s used 1.0µ silicon, the ARM3s started at 1.0µ
and are now on 0.8µ silicon and the ARM6 family is moving from 0.8µ to
0.6µ during the course of 1994. The ARM700 that we tested last time we
went down to Acorn Computers was only 0.8µ and was limited in speed but
when ARM Ltd manage to get the manufacturing techniques refined
sufficiently to produce 0.5µ chips, the speed increases will be
significant.
7.8
The future?
7.8
And what is the future for Risc PC and beyond? Well, one thing for
certain is that the Risc PC’s adaptability means that it will go on
being used for some considerable time to come. The Risc PCs being made
today will still be in action for several years to come because of the
way that they can be expanded and adapted.
7.8
Having said that, my contacts inside Acorn tell me that Risc PC in its
present form is unlikely to go on being manufactured for more than two
to three years. Acorn obviously have plans for newer machines for 1996/7
and beyond which we can only dream about. There are, however, one or two
things about which we can make intelligent guesses, so let me try to do
just that...
7.8
Macro-cell integration
7.8
To make the A3010, A3020 and A4000 computers, Acorn used the ARM250 chip
which involved ‘macro-cell integration’. In other words, they combined
ARM2, VIDC1 and MEMC1 into a single chip − the ARM250. In the same way,
ARM Ltd are combining ARM6 (or 7 or 8) with VIDC20 and IOMD/MEMC20 in a
single chip − ARM650 (750/850). This means that they are aiming, as a
basic minimum, to produce updated versions of A3000/4000 range desktop
computers at very low prices relative to the processing/graphics powers
involved and, surely, they must be building portables and maybe even
palmtops using this same technology.
7.8
As the following table shows, when you look at the relative merits of
Pentium and PowerPC (the RISC chip inside the Power Macs) versus ARM
technology, you can easily see the lead that Acorn still have in this
area. (Why else did Apple use the ARM610 in their Newton palm-top
computer?)
7.8
That is about as far as I can get in my crystal-ball gazing but if Acorn
continue their new ‘open’ policy, it shouldn’t be too long before we can
give you some firm news on the next step in Acorn’s Vision for the
Future!  A
7.8
The Risc PC − The heart of a whole new world
7.8
Plug-in items are shown dotted. Fixed items are shown in solid lines.
7.8
Machine  Mode 0  SVGA 16-col  SVGA 256-col
7.8
A4000 (12 MHz)  11  7  3
7.8
A5000 (25 MHz)  22  20  10
7.8
A5000 (33 MHz)  26  23  13
7.8
A610 (30 MHz)  39  36  25
7.8
A610 (30 MHz) 1M VRAM  40  40  40
7.8
Machine  MIPS
7.8
A4000 (12 MHz)  6
7.8
A5000 (25 MHz)  12
7.8
A5000 (33 MHz)  15
7.8
A610 (30 MHz)  26
7.8
A610 (30 MHz) 1M VRAM  26
7.8
Machine  MIPS
7.8
386 SX (33 MHz)  6−7
7.8
486 SX/DX (25 MHz)  11
7.8
486 SX/DX (33 MHz)  15
7.8
486 DX (50 MHz)  22
7.8
486 DX2 (66 MHz)  26−27
7.8
Acorn’s Processor Technology Roadmap
7.8
kDhrystones/sec − vs − Clock Speed (MHz)
7.8
    Pentium  PowerPC  ARM600
7.8
Frequency of operation  60 MHz  60 MHz  30 MHz
7.8
Power consumption (W)  15  8.5  0.8
7.8
Die size (mm²)  262  119  46
7.8
Cost per unit for 20,000  $700  $400  $23
7.8
Acorn’s Processor Technology Roadmap
7.8
Expanded view to show ARM2 − ARM7
7.8
CC
7.8
From 7.7 page 33
7.8
Colton
7.8
From 7.7 page 13
7.8
Risc PC Operating System − RISC OS 3.5
7.8
Matthew Hunter
7.8
Although there are large changes in the hardware between Archimedes and
Risc PC, it is important to note that these new machines do not come
with an all-new operating system − it is simply an enhanced version of
RISC OS 3. Most of the changes ensure that the new hardware is used to
the full, rather than adding much to the functionality of the system.
7.8
This has the advantage that there should be few incompatibilities.
Virtually all the software that runs on Archimedes machines should run
on the Risc PC without modification except, perhaps, for some games.
From the user’s point of view, the jump from RISC OS 2 to 3 will have
caused more difficulty than from RISC OS 3 to 3.5.
7.8
RISC OS 3.5 in use
7.8
In this first section of the article, I want to look at some of the
changes that have been made that will be apparent to the general user. I
will turn later in the section on “System Changes” to a more technical
view of the changes underlying what the general user sees.
7.8
User interface
7.8
Once you are in the desktop, the most obvious difference is the use of
the NewLook 3D desktop and the system font having been replaced by one
of the outline fonts which is, of course, configurable. These fonts
replace the system font in all dialogue boxes, menus, title bars and so
on, except where the redraw is done by an application. This means that a
text editor, for example, can still use the system font, so it does not
need to worry about proportional fonts. Some window backgrounds are also
tiled like the backdrop, which means that some dialogue boxes appear
with a marbled effect. However, what you notice most when using the
Risc PC is the increase in speed − particularly in redrawing.
7.8
Filer
7.8
One of the most used applications must be the Filer which has several
new features. When dragging a file, it displays the complete sprite,
rather than the drag box which was used as standard on earlier machines.
One nice extra touch is that every other pixel in the sprite is set to
transparent, so you can see through the icon to what is underneath. If
you are dragging multiple files, the sprite will be a bound package, to
show that it is not a single file.
7.8
Another nice touch is the addition of open directories. If a directory
display is open, the parent directory display will show that the
directory is open. The filer also uses the outline font set up for the
wimp, and will adjust the width of columns accordingly, to allow for the
length of strings. A DOSFS window, for example, will now show the whole
name, including the extension, which tends to get clipped with RISC OS
3.1. The bad news for users with large hard drives is that filecore
still limits the size of any one device (or partition) to 512Mb.
7.8
Apps
7.8
As before, there is an Apps icon on the iconbar but the contents are no
longer in ROM. Instead, they are held in a directory on the hard disc.
This makes it easier for third parties to add applications, as part of
an install procedure, or the user can drag in extra applications
directly.
7.8
In addition, updates to the software can more easily be made.
7.8
Display manager
7.8
The !Palette application in earlier versions of RISC OS has been
criticised for the fact that you need to know the number of the mode you
want. This was bad enough on the Archimedes computers but with the
versatility of the Risc PC’s graphics, it would have been unworkable.
7.8
Although you can still use the same method, an alternative has been
provided. This is a display manager which, when clicked on, gives a
small window showing the resolution and number of colours in the current
mode. You can then pick a new resolution or number of colours, and the
closest mode will be picked. If you are in 800×600, 16 million colours,
and change the resolution to 1024×768, the number of colours will be
dropped to 32 thousand, the maximum supported with 2Mb of VRAM. (See the
screenshot above.)
7.8
Unlike previous systems, there is no monitor type configuration either.
Instead, monitor definition files are produced, rather like the printer
definitions for RISC OS 3 !Printers. These files define what a
particular monitor can display, and since each is named appropriately,
you can simply set your system up as Acorn AKF60, Acorn AKF85, etc.
7.8
Colour picker
7.8
The colour picker in Draw has always been able to define and use a 24bit
RGB colour, using dithering to approximate the colour chosen. Now, a
colour can be chosen from within the RGB colour cube (shown below) or by
using the CMYK colour model (as used in printing) or the HSV colour
model (intended as an artist’s view of colour).
7.8
System changes
7.8
There are considerable changes in the underlying system for RISC OS 3.5,
in order to take advantage of the new hardware and to cushion the user
from some of its intricacies.
7.8
Memory management
7.8
Some major adjustments to the operating system have been necessary so
that it can access the much increased memory sizes. Previously, the
memory management was split between the kernel which set up the dynamic
areas and a single application space, and the wimp which split the
application space between a free pool and multiple application spaces.
However, with RISC OS 3.5, the free pool has been moved into the kernel,
leaving the wimp to handle the multiple application spaces and manage
tasks in the desktop. RISC OS 3.5 is capable of handling the 256Mb of
RAM, and the page size is now fixed at 4Kb, whatever the total memory
size. The kernel also has full support for a second bus master to access
main memory without clashing with RISC OS.
7.8
Device drivers
7.8
The device drivers have also been changed to optimise performance with
the new hardware. The parallel port can be opened for input or output,
and the serial port speed has been increased to 115Kb/sec, even in the
desktop.
7.8
Unlike earlier versions, the keyboard and mouse drivers are no longer
part of the kernel but have been placed in separate modules. The Acorn
keyboard driver has been replaced by an AT-style PC keyboard and a
second mouse driver has been added so that the serial port can be used
with a PC-type serial mouse. This has the advantage that, should you
wish to use alternative input devices, a new driver can be added to
cater for them.
7.8
Networking
7.8
Additional facilities for networking are included in RISC OS 3.5, with
AUN (Acorn Universal Networking) being built in, to take advantage of
the dedicated network card interface.
7.8
Expansion
7.8
Further adjustments have been made to allow for the new expansion card
architecture. 32-bit data paths are supported and there is a 16Mb
address space on each card.
7.8
System resources
7.8
The system resources have undergone some major adjustments. Many of them
are now on disc rather than in ROM, which makes the machine far more
configurable (just make sure you have a backup first). The !Boot file
has now become a !Boot directory with a structure similar to that shown
below.
7.8
The precise structure and contents obviously depend on the user’s
choices. The Library directory has moved from the root into the !Boot,
while !Fonts, !Scrap and !System have all moved into the resources sub-
directory. Other obvious changes are the separation of the boot sequence
into Pre and Post desktop sections (something that many current users
have found necessary) and the monitor definition files. The filename for
a desktop boot file defaults appropriately so that you do not need to
know your way around the directory structure in order to save your
choices, simply click on OK. It is quite possible to use the Risc PC
without any knowledge of, or interest in, the way the boot system works.
7.8
Configuration
7.8
The !Boot application is, of course, run at start-up to ensure that any
necessary paths are set up correctly, applications loaded and so on.
However, if it is run from the desktop, the !Configure program is
started (which is why, as the observant among you will have noticed, it
does not appear within Apps).
7.8
Most of this is similar to the options found within RISC OS 3.1. Screen
has been changed to take account of the new monitor definition files and
Windows includes the options given by the !NewLook application for 3D
effects, backdrops and so on. System is a built-in version of !Sysmerge.
Since !System is buried in the directory structure, it is useful to have
this segment of !Configure which allows newer module versions to be
merged.
7.8
The final option allows the user to lock access to the filing system, by
use of a password, to prevent unauthorised access to files. Configure
can also be locked to prevent the configuration being modified − useful
in a school environment. There is also a physical link on the main PCB
which prevents the <delete-power-on> working, without which, bypassing
the lock feature would be quite straight forward. (To avoid the physical
link being changed, the case can have a padlock fitted to it! Ed.)
7.8
Taskmanager
7.8
The taskmanager has not changed substantially. The task display option
allows for varying numbers of dynamic areas and there is a new section
devoted to them. The amount of VRAM present is not displayed separately
since, if it is not being used for video, it is used as if it were
ordinary DRAM.
7.8
An extra feature provides is the <alt-break> shortcut which open a
window which gives you the option to kill any task that is running. This
is useful if a program gets into an infinite loop and refuses to return
control to the user.
7.8
Extras
7.8
As with earlier versions of RISC OS, the Applications Suite is supplied
as standard, but several other applications have been added. !Replay is
supplied along with some example films and some sound-only Replay files.
Over a hundred still images are supplied, in JPEG format. These can be
loaded using !ChangeFSI but new versions of Impression should be able to
load them directly. I used !ChangeFSI to get some idea of the relative
speeds of different machines, by decompressing the same image in several
ways.
7.8
As expected, there is little difference between slow and fast modes on
the Risc PC machines, due to the presence of 2Mb of VRAM. The ARM700
machine was in fact the ARM600 with the processor card swapped. Allowing
for the difference in clock speeds, the ARM700 works out at about 16%
faster in this test. The longer time taken to generate the 256 colour
images represents the extra work needed to reduce the 24-bit pixel
values produced from the JPEG to the closest equivalent in 256 colours.
These values should not be taken as anything other than a rough guide
since they do not take account of the extra software running on either
machine, and the presence of expansion cards and so on.
7.8
Another new application is !Product. This is database of available
software, which documents known bugs for applications running on the new
machines. Should you find a bug which is not documented, it will even
help you write a letter to the manufacturer!  A
7.8
Just in case any Archimedes users with RISC OS 3.1 are thinking how nice
it would be to upgrade to 3.5, I’m afraid there is no plan to make
RISC OS 3.5 available on any machines earlier than the Risc PC. Sorry!
Ed.
7.8
Machine  ARM600  ARM700  A5000
7.8
Speed  30MHz  33MHz  25MHz
7.8
Time to decompress to:
7.8
16 million colours  6.25s  4.88s     −
7.8
16 million colours (fast mode)  6.14s  4.85s     −
7.8
256 colours  9.86s     −  17.01s
7.8
256 colours (fast mode)  9.80s     −  14.69s
7.8
TableMate
7.8
Dalriada Data
7.8
New
7.8
CC
7.8
From 7.7 page 14
7.8
Hint and Tips
7.8
•  CC Turbo drivers − It has been stated in the past that to print from
Basic (or similar), you need to load the Turbo Driver before it will
work. This is not, in fact, the case. After installation, the !Printers
directory will contain a directory called td, which is where the Turbo
Driver resources are kept. In the subdirectory Resources.Modules is a
relocatable module ‘turbo’ which is all that is required to enable
printing from Basic. If you frequently wish to print in this way, it may
be beneficial to load the module as part of your boot sequence. G.
Smith, London.
7.8
•  Conditional Basic − Following hours of head-scratching and computer-
bashing, wondering why an “IF...THEN...ELSE...ENDIF” did not work as it
should, I made the following discovery. The problem occurs if you are
using !StrongEd when after the THEN, for whatever reason, there is a
space which you cannot see. (It is possible to make it visible in
!StrongEd since you can set the window and text background colours
independently, e.g. two different shades of grey. MH) In my case, it was
left there after splitting the line. The program then seems to ignore
the THEN and just continues its flow, and of course, if the condition
has not been satisfied, the wrong result is achieved. If you delete the
unseen space or spaces it works correctly. The same does not occur with
!Edit. How about other editors?  John Charman, Norfolk.
7.8
(I have tried this with the public domain editor, !Zap. If you edit in
BASTXT mode, the spaces are saved, but the program functions correctly.
If you edit in Basic mode, trailing spaces are removed. Is there a
difference if you run the program from within !StrongEd, rather than
saving the file and running it normally? MH)
7.8
•  Deskjet printing − Examining the printer graphics output for the
Deskjet from the Acorn Printer driver, I see that graphics output ends
with the code <esc>*rB. This was the accepted code until the DJ500 but,
thereafter, <esc>*rC is required. The latter is recommended to cover
both cases. In the !Paint code, it is immediately followed by <esc>E to
reinitialise the printer, so it would probably work OK but, in other
contexts, it could have undefined results. John Laski, London SW1.
7.8
•  Epson Stylus and Turbo Driver − If you are having problems with
spurious formfeeds being sent out to the Epson Stylus printer from the
CC Turbo Driver, don’t despair. It is a known problem and Computer
Concepts have a fixed version of the Turbo Driver. Contact them for more
details.  Michael Pullin, Cheltenham.
7.8
•  Ink Refills for Canon BJC-600 − The Canon Inkjet Colour Printer BJC-
600 is highly regarded as a suitable colour printer for Acorn 32-bit
(Archimedes) computers. It produces prints with 360 dpi resolution and
near-photographic quality in colour of an excellence previously
obtainable only with much more expensive printers. The method of
printing is to eject coloured inks in very small droplets from separate
reservoirs of ink of four colours (yellow, cyan, magenta and black)
through holes of microscopic size in a print-head which is traversed
laterally as the paper is advanced beneath it.
7.8
In the Canon BJC-600, the print-head is retained in the machine and only
requires renewal at long intervals. The four inks are contained in
liquid form in separate plastic cartridges which are conveniently
transparent to show the quantity of ink remaining. These four cartridges
plug into the print head and can be removed and replaced individually.
Each cartridge is sealed except for one hole which feeds ink to the
print head (the ink exit hole). A spongy material which is located
within the cartridge absorbs some of the ink and prevents it flowing too
freely from the cartridge.
7.8
Ink refill kits have become available to save on the cost of new
cartridges. It is particularly important, if refilling is contemplated,
that only inks of the special types used in inkjet printers should be
employed.
7.8
In my experience, it is not satisfactory to attempt to inject new ink
through the ink exit hole: Filling in that fashion can only be done
slowly as air must exit at the same time by the same hole. Furthermore,
there is a risk of disturbing the spongy material within the cartridge
at the critical position in the vicinity of the hole. So, my solution
has been to drill another hole in the cartridge for filling with ink.
Although this and the subsequent operations which I shall describe are
simple in nature, they require some dexterity. If you wish to experiment
at your own risk, proceed as follows:
7.8
To modify the cartridge, peel back the coloured adhesive label to expose
the top of the cartridge. Drill a small hole in the centre of the round
moulding depression on the top of the cartridge (see diagram opposite).
I shall call this the filling hole.
7.8
Take a piece of adhesive tape of about ¾“ square − the common brown
adhesive packaging tape is ideal as it adheres strongly to the material
of the cartridge. Place this tape to cover the filling hole which you
have drilled and bend the tape to extend it over the side of the
cartridge. This extension will facilitate its removal later. Finally,
smooth back the coloured label to its normal position at the top of the
cartridge. This completes the modification of the cartridge.
7.8
Filling a modified cartridge.
7.8
(a) My experience in refilling cartridges is limited to the use of ink
obtained from System Insight of Welwyn Garden City which I have found to
be satisfactory. The ink is supplied in plastic squeeze bottles which
are very convenient − specify that ink is required for the BJC-600 and
the bottles will be fitted with long straight hollow needles (or probes)
somewhat like a hypodermic syringe. Ink of all four colours will be
required.
7.8
(b) Seal off temporarily the ink exit hole in the cartridge with tape.
This requires care as the exit hole is near a corner of the cartridge. A
clamp against a soft rubber washer as a seal is a better solution.
7.8
(c) Peel back the coloured label at the top of an empty cartridge to
expose the brown tape and remove this brown tape to expose the filling
hole. Insert the probe of a squeeze bottle containing ink of the correct
colour (check the colour of the cartridge label carefully) and fill the
cartridge with ink. Do not overfill but move the cartridge as necessary
to ensure that air is not trapped.
7.8
(d) Seal the filling hole again with a fresh piece of brown adhesive
tape. Smooth back the coloured label over the top of the cartridge.
Remove the tape (or other seal) which was placed temporarily over the
ink exit hole.
7.8
(e) Place the cartridges vertically on a flat surface (in the stance
they would normally occupy when in the printer) and leave them overnight
to stabilize. There should be no leakage.
7.8
(f) Place the newly filled cartridges in the printer and perform the
four-colour cleaning operation which would normally be carried out with
new cartridges.
7.8
You should note that you will be unlikely to complete these filling
operations without spilling some ink especially until experience is
gained. So take care to undertake filling where spilled ink is of no
consequence. Toilet tissue is the best material for mopping up surplus
ink. A small quantity of ink on the hands is of little consequence as it
soon disappears with normal washing.
7.8
The amount of money to be saved by refilling cartridges is worth the
effort if the printer is used extensively. On the other hand, success
will depend considerably on your manipulative skill − you may consider
it preferable to employ only new cartridges as supplied by Canon.
George Foot, Oxted.
7.8
•  Laser Direct and RISC OS 3 − Having recently upgraded to the RISC OS
3 version of the Laser Direct printer driver (v2.61), I’ve hit a couple
of snags when using a Canon LBP-4 printer fitted with a paper cassette.
Thinking these were new bugs, I reported them to Computer Concepts but
have been advised that they are ‘features’ of the (RISC OS 3) model.
7.8
In neither case do the problems stop successful printing but they do
need to be taken into account, thus making the system not quite so user-
friendly.
7.8
When the driver is first loaded and the paper cassette is selected, the
printer Alarm LED now remains on and the Status window shows ‘No paper
in multi-purpose tray’. This is not normally a problem as, once the
first page of a document has been assembled, the Ready LED comes on and
the printer fires up (thereafter, the Ready LED remains on). However,
where an application allows individual pages to be selected, e.g.
Pipedream’s ‘Wait between pages’ option, the printer may not fire up
until the final page of the document has been accepted or rejected. With
a large document, many minutes can be lost.
7.8
There are two work-around solutions; put a sheet of paper in the multi-
purpose tray or first print another full document. Either action will
bring on the Ready LED and allow printing to start as soon as the first
selected page has been assembled.
7.8
Secondly, when you use the ‘Print to file’ option, the paper feed
selected at the time is now saved with the file and, on printing, will
override any other setting. So, when printing to file, you must decide
where you want the paper to come from when the file is finally printed,
and pre-select Cassette or Multi-Purpose before printing to file.  Jim
Nottingham, York.
7.8
•  PipeDream to Impression − In Archive 7.7 p56, Paul mentioned getting
files from Pipedream to Impression via DeskEdit. If you have PipeDream4,
there is an option “Paragraph” on the save window. If you click that,
you can drop the text straight from PipeDream into Impression.  Michael
Wright, Teignmouth.
7.8
•  Quieter fans? − David Lenthall (Archive 7.6 p23) asked for a supply
of quiet Papst fans. You could try a company called Papst Direct,
Andover, Hants, SP10 3RT (0264-335714) (0264-332182) who advertised in
Computer Shopper some while back. Their Variofan will “run as fast as
your PC needs”. I haven’t tried them myself so if anyone does, perhaps
they would report back so we can all benefit. Thanks.  David White,
Cambridge.
7.8
•  Rodent sunglasses? − As a person of the bearded persuasion (those who
met Dave at Acorn World or the NCS Open Day can confirm that!) who
sometimes eats digestive biscuits whilst working at my Archimedes, my
keyboard and mouse mat often suffer a shower of crumbs and small hairs
as I scratch my chin. This requires frequent removal and cleaning of the
rubber ball in the mouse.
7.8
I have become accustomed to this so the other day, when the mouse
pointer started moving in jerks I removed the ball and cleaned it. No
improvement. I tried again, this time cleaning the little rollers with a
cotton bud as well. Still it wouldn’t work properly. I washed the mouse
mat but again, it misbehaved.
7.8
The mouse I normally use was actually taken from an A3020 because I
prefer it to the one supplied with my A5000, so at this point, I decided
to try the original mouse and everything worked perfectly.
7.8
A little later, determined not to be beaten, I took the top off the
mouse to give it a thorough clean. This still produced no improvement. I
therefore tried using it with the top cover removed in the hope of being
able to see what was going wrong. All the little rollers appeared to be
turning, but the mouse pointer wasn’t moving, just vibrating as I moved
the mouse.
7.8
The mouse uses an optical sensor with a slotted disc and, with the top
removed, there was too much light for this to function whereas shielding
the works with my hand made it function correctly.
7.8
Suddenly the penny dropped! I refitted the cover, placed my hand
completely over the mouse (instead of just moving it held between thumb
and little finger as usual) and it worked. The trouble was that I work
with my desk in a bay window, and it was the first sunny day of the
year. The afternoon sun shining through the window was landing on my
desk just where I had positioned the mouse mat. Enough of this bright
sunlight was penetrating the casing of the mouse to confuse the optical
sensor. I had wasted about an hour trying to find a non-existent fault
when all that was needed was to partially draw the curtains!
7.8
I have now stuck some kitchen foil to the inside of my mouse casing!
David Holden, Sydenham.
7.8
•  !Spark(plug) 2.22 − John Laski also writes of !Spark “this
successfully unzips some files, but not others.” Unfortunately there
have been later versions of ZIP on the PC than !Spark will currently
handle. If you have access to the PC Emulator, I would recommend that
you use the PKUNZIP program within the PC partition. While slower than
!Spark, it does have the advantage that the decompressed files have the
correct extensions (which !Spark does not (yet?) offer), and if the
software is PC anyway, extracting it via !Spark to the PC partition and
then having to rename all the files is more hassle than resorting to
DOS. If you are sending the files to a Pocket Book (much of the Psion 3
software is distributed through PC media) then with PocketFS2 you can
drag a file directly from the PC partition to the PocketFS filer (not
the translation window), which is another advantage of the PC method.
Hopefully, future versions of !Spark will support extensions, as well as
later versions of ZIP files, thus making my PC partition redundant!
Matthew Hunter, NCS
7.8
•  Taxan 789 problems − I’ve been offered quite a bit of advice on my
Taxan 789 problem; unfortunately, none of it is definitive and some of
it is contradictory. However, the general consensus is that the Taxan
789 should run OK direct from ‘new’ machines, i.e. A5000 or later. It
may run off ‘old’ machines, with or without multisync VIDC enhancers,
but this is unlikely. It probably will run OK with SVGA VIDC enhancers,
such as the version marketed by Watford Electronics.
7.8
Apparently, the clue is whether the computer/VIDC enhancer produces a
composite sync or the preferred separate horizontal and vertical syncs.
This may explain why I had identical problems trying to run it from an
A410/1, with multisync enhancer, or an A540 with built-in equivalent
hardware.
7.8
I’m now running the monitor successfully from a State Machine G16 card
and am extremely impressed with the display quality in the higher-
resolution modes, which is only marginally down on that of my Eizo
F550i. While I agree entirely with Stuart Bell’s rationale on 14“ versus
17” monitors (Archive 7.4 p31), for someone who cannot justify the
expense of the latter, a 14“ monitor and colour card (and, in my case, a
pair of reading glasses...) would make a relatively economical
compromise.  Jim Nottingham, York.  A
7.8
Credit where it’s due
7.8
It is very useful for us to hear about good service obtained from
different companies even if we don’t actually publish the comments. It
enables us to get a feel for which companies we should be recommending
when subscribers ask for advice and which not.
7.8
But here are some recommendations we decided would be good to publish...
7.8
Atomwide/Acorn − Five weeks ago, my A5000 failed. A three-week stay in
my local Acorn service centre proved fruitless since they do not have
the necessary “surface-mount component-level servicing equipment”. They
suggested I used Atomwide, so I sent it to them. Apparently, my machine
was one of a rogue batch that had some capacitors in back-to-front!
Acorn have accepted responsibility and supplied Atomwide with a new
mother board, so my A5000 is now on its way back to me. Many thanks to
both Atomwide and Acorn for good service.  David White, Cambridge.
7.8
IFEL of Saltash, Cornwall, are a frequent recipient of pats on the back
and one comes this month from Professor Noel Thompson of Harrow. “I was
very impressed with the 4Mb expansion board for my A310 that I got from
them. The price was good, it looked very professionally made and the
instructions were clear. Even so, I had problems. I returned the mother
board and the expansion board to them and ,on the third day after
posting them, they were returned, tested, working and with a full
explanation of what I had done wrong. They apologised for having to
charge me a small sum for fixing the problem as it was my fault − it was
very modest and I was happy to pay it. Excellent service − thank you,
IFEL.”
7.8
LOOKsystems got a bit of stick when Adrian went away on holiday and
there was no-one around to give out password numbers to unlock the
Monotype Fonts packs that people had bought − one of the problems of
being a very small firm. Recently, however, we have had several very
good crits from people impressed with the way Adrian has dealt with
other people’s problems! The details are given in “Font problems and
solutions” in the Comment Column on page 33 but basically a problem came
to light when people were using LOOKsystems’ Monotype fonts with
TurboDrivers and other software. Adrian investigated it, found that the
problem was that the kerning facilities within RISC OS 3 weren’t working
properly, developed a work-around and sent out up-dated copies of the
font loader disc in next to no time. The letters were from people who
were impressed at the way Adrian had addressed what was basically
Acorn’s problem, solved it and sent out updates free-of-charge.
7.8
(’Scuse me asking, but do you get this sort of spirit in the PC world?!
Not having been involved, I don’t know but I would somehow doubt it.
Ed.)  A
7.8
Games Column
7.8
Dave Floyd
7.8
Thanks to all those who have written to me so far. Keep the letters
coming, as I want to hear what you think about games on the Archimedes.
Last month, I looked briefly at what was currently available in the way
of shoot-em-up, platform, fighting and adventure games, and mentioned
some imminent releases. Unfortunately, an error crept in to the
paragraph on fighting games which I did not notice until it was too
late, so please accept my apologies. To rectify that error, I will begin
the second part of my overview with the corrected version.
7.8
Fighting games
7.8
There is very little competition so far in the Archimedes field,
although the genre appears to be flourishing on other systems. Grievous
Bodily ’Arm from 4th Dimension and Blood Sport from Matt Black have been
the only two titles to date. Of these two, Blood Sport gets my vote but
it’s not Street Fighter 2 and, if released on any other format, it would
be totally overwhelmed. I have seen an advert for a new game called
!DeathBlow but have not yet seen the game so cannot comment.
7.8
Simulations
7.8
There are a number of flight simulators available, most of which I have
not played. Perhaps readers could let me know which are their particular
favourites. I enjoy Chocks Away from the 4th Dimension, finding that the
controls are easy to understand and learn, thereby allowing me to play
it without spending hours in flight training first.
7.8
Golf games have also featured quite well in Archimedes games catalogues,
although they were not really simulations in the true sense of the word.
All that was swept aside with the release of Virtual Golf, again by 4th
Dimension. If you are looking for a golf game, I can see no reason at
present to look any further than this package.
7.8
Car racing games have always been popular with the computing fraternity
and there are a few out there for the Archimedes. E-Type (4th Dimension)
was the first and is still quite fun to play, as is Lotus Turbo
Challenge from Krisalis. Both are more ‘fun games’ as opposed to
simulations though, and do not really give you the feeling that you are
in the car. Saloon Cars from the 4th Dimension went a long way towards
providing a true simulation and is the only game I have seen so far on
the Archimedes that has come close to Revs in this respect.
7.8
Football games on the Archimedes have been sadly lacking to date,
although with the World Cup looming this year, there will be many
releases on other formats and it seems that we are to get conversions of
some of the best available elsewhere. Sensible Soccer from Renegade is
much respected on the Amiga and, having played the demo, I can see why.
Also coming soon is Striker from Gamesware − one of the best football
games on other platforms. What I have seen of this so far looks
promising. Both of these should be out very soon. Arcade Soccer from 4th
Dimension has its points but really does not compare with the two new
releases. (Sensible Soccer is available now for £24 through Archive.
Ed.)
7.8
Football management games have been sadly ignored until now. However,
Premier League Manager should hopefully be released soon, and this is
certainly one of the best management games on the Amiga. I would also
like somebody to convert Championship Manager and Championship Manager
Italia, although with all three in my collection, the temptation to do
nothing other than play games would perhaps be too great.
7.8
The other football games on the Archimedes come from Krisalis − I bought
Manchester United when it was first released. In my first season of
playing, I won the league and cup double and put it away never to be
retrieved. It really is a very tedious game − and I am a big fan of
football games. Manchester United Europe is reportedly better but I took
the attitude of ‘once bitten twice shy’, so have not played it myself.
Manchester United is now a budget release at £9.99 but in my opinion, it
is not even good value at that price.
7.8
Puzzle games
7.8
Puzzle style games were dominated on the BBC by Repton, and the cute
green reptile has made his way over to the Archimedes. Repton 3 was the
first to be released and is better than the BBC version with the
animation very smooth indeed. The addition of RAM-save was also very
welcome. Ego: Repton 4 was not a conversion but was a great
disappointment to me. It took me a grand total of 24 hours to complete
and I have not played it since. It is far too easy and far too little
imagination has been employed in its design. My all-time favourite,
however, has to be Repton 2. Second only to Elite on the BBC in terms of
hours spent playing, it has finally made its journey as part of Play It
Again Sam 2 and is worth every penny on its own. Some extra levels have
been added so those who can solve the BBC version will still have some
head-scratching to do. In my case, it is much head-scratching and I am
still puzzling over it. In my opinion, it is one of the most worthy BBC
conversions, along with Elite, but I would still like to see Frak! and
Chuckie Egg make an appearance.
7.8
Lemmings is another obvious candidate for inclusion in this section. I
enjoyed Lemmings 1, although the levels which required sheer brute speed
rather than puzzling skills put me off a little. These problems have
apparently been solved in Lemmings 2 but, having only played the demo, I
will reserve judgement for the moment − but the demo is very good.
7.8
Coming very soon is Diggers from Millenium. Diggers was the first game
to be released for the CD32 on the Commodore Amiga platform, and is a
cross between Lemmings and Populous. I will take a more detailed look at
Diggers in next month’s Games Column. (It’s here! We have it in stock at
£28 through Archive. Ed.)
7.8
Elite style games
7.8
I really cannot think of a better description and I am sure everybody
reading will understand what I mean. StarTrader from Gem Electronics was
the first of this type that I saw advertised. It sounded wonderful from
the claims in the advertising but, sadly, this was not to be the case
and it was a very ordinary game indeed. UIM from 4th Dimension came next
and I found this rather slow and unresponsive. It is also very quirky in
its handling of missions and the hardware required to complete them.
7.8
After what seemed like years of hype, Karma finally made its appearance
in the form of the Karma Flight Trainer, a major non-event in the
history of Archimedes games. It bore very little relation to anything
that had been written about Karma and was just plain tedious. Following
the tragic death of one of the programmers responsible for the project,
it now seems unlikely that the full game will ever be released which, if
it lived up to half the claims made for it, is a great pity.
7.8
Finally, Elite itself was converted by Hybrid Technology and, in
comparison to the BBC version, is far more difficult. On the BBC, I can
attain Elite status within 48 hours but, after many attempts on the
Archimedes, I am still far from that particular goal. It is still a good
game but, ten years on from its original release, it is beginning to
show its age. The fact that it is still as good as it is, shows what a
tremendous game it was originally. As was stated in Archive 7.6 p21,
Elite 2 has finally been released on other platforms and I can only beg
for its release on the Archimedes as soon as possible.
7.8
If I have not mentioned your particular favourite in this brief round
up, please let me know. Also, if you have any opinions relating to the
Archimedes games market, please write to me c/o PO Box 2795, Harlesden,
London NW10 9AY.  A
7.8
LookSystems
7.8
Font Directory
7.8
LookSystems
7.8
BitFolio
7.8
Mixing High and Low Level Languages
7.8
Francis Crossley
7.8
This article considers the mixing of two languages in a program, why one
might do it and how it can be done. I will use Basic and assembly
language, as examples, in order to focus our ideas because we all have
access to them, although most high level languages could be substituted
for Basic.
7.8
Mixing a language such as C or Basic with assembly language can have
advantages, the most important being speed of execution. I wrote two
simple programs, both writing a large filled rectangle to the screen to
simulate a sprite. The one using Basic took more than 4 seconds to
complete the task but the one using assembler for the drawing part took
around 0.1 second − a vast improvement. These figures were for an A310
fitted with an ARM3 operating with the cache enabled.
7.8
Another advantage is the size of the code produced. Particularly if
compared with a compiled language, assembly language programs are the
smallest one can write − if well written!
7.8
It is less easy to write a program in assembler than in Basic since the
programmer needs to think of everything but the feeling of achievement
is considerable. There is a very large number of fundamental routines
available − the SWIs. These make our life easier and range from the
useful to the essential. Any serious assembly language programmer needs
to have the Programmer’s Reference Manual, even the one for RISC OS 2 is
better than none for the RISC OS 3 user. It is also necessary to have a
book on assembly language programming.
7.8
Example for discussion
7.8
As an example of using Basic and assembler, I will describe a program
which draws horizontal stripes of different colours in mode 15 − so that
we can have 256 lines and 256 colours. To produce a mark on the screen
using assembler, we need to write a byte to an address within the screen
memory. The value of the byte sets the colour − there is no need to
concern ourselves with TINT or GCOL. However, if particular colours are
required, a look-up table will be needed. In order to make an example,
the Basic program will generate the data (slowly!) which will be
displayed by the assembly code part.
7.8
Declaring space
7.8
First we must decide where to put the assembly code, the most convenient
way is to use the DIM statement to reserve some space. We do not need to
know exactly where it will be although we can find out quite painlessly.
The format of the statement is:
7.8
DIM code <size in bytes>,data 80000
7.8
‘code’ is any name you want to use and ‘size’ is the amount of space
your pieces of assembler will need. It MUST be large enough or something
important might be overwritten! Since each assembler statement uses four
bytes, you can check, as you write the program, how much space is being
used. Notice also that the normal representation of an array is not
used, even if integers were needed for the data. Extra care is required
if integers are to be used.
7.8
Basic uses the variable P% to represent the address where the assembled
code will start (i.e. the machine code) and the assembler in Basic looks
for the symbol ‘[’ to find the start of the code in your program,
7.8
P%=code
7.8
[
7.8
Forward references and OPT
7.8
There is now a subtle problem! If, at some stage in your code, you wish
to jump to a label further down the program, the assembler will be
unable to find it because the label has not been seen yet and an error
message will be shown stopping further assembly. To avoid this problem,
we use a pseudo-operator which is an assembler command, not an opcode
for the ARM − this is ‘OPT’. OPT can have eight different values
depending on what you want it to do, the most useful values being 0 and
3. OPT=0 tells the assembler to ignore errors and not to display the
machine code it is producing. We will see the value of this very soon.
OPT=3 tells the assembler to report errors and to display the machine
code. Using these two values, in turn, we make the assembler process the
code twice, the first time through, it will find all the labels and
their addresses ignoring errors, and the second time through, the code
being produced is displayed and the errors (which always somehow creep
in!) can be reported. Two passes can be arranged with a FOR...NEXT loop
as shown below.
7.8
FOR I%=0 TO 3 STEP 3
7.8
P%=code
7.8
[
7.8
OPT I%
7.8
.........
7.8
assembler
7.8
.........
7.8
]
7.8
NEXT
7.8
It is very important that ‘P%’ is set equal to ‘code’ within the FOR
loop or, on the second pass, ‘P%’ will start with the value it had
reached at the end of the first pass and horrible confusion will ensue.
7.8
Screen memory
7.8
Where does the screen memory start? This address probably depends on the
screen mode, at least, so Acorn supplies a low level command to tell us
− ‘OS_ReadVduVariables’ − note that the upper and lower case characters
are important. This is a general-purpose command with a list of
variables whose values we require. About 70 values can be found with
this command. The usual way of providing such a list is to put them one
after another somewhere in memory and to give the address of the first
one to the operating system routine, in R0. To do this we need some more
assembler commands (also called directives):
7.8
EQUB <number> save space for 1 byte value <number>
7.8
EQUW <number> save space for a 2 byte number <number>
7.8
EQUD <number> save space for a 4 byte number <number> known as a ‘word’
7.8
EQUS “some string” stores the string given
7.8
In our case, the variable whose value we want is represented by the
number 149, the end of the list is shown by ‘-1’. The following
directives are placed at the end of the assembly code, and each group of
directives usually has a label so that it can be referenced. A label is
a name preceded by a full stop.
7.8
.vdu_input
7.8
EQUD  149
7.8
EQUD  -1
7.8
.displaystart
7.8
EQUD  1
7.8
At the start of the assembler code will be the commands:
7.8
ADR R0,vdu_input  ; put address of ‘vdu_input’ in R0
7.8
ADR R1,displaystart ; routine puts address of ‘displaystart’ in R1
7.8
SWI “OS_ReadVduVariables” ; call the routine
7.8
The registers
7.8
R0 to R15 are the sixteen registers which the ARM uses for all its data
processing. They are all general-purpose registers although R15 is also
the program counter which contains the address of the instruction two
ahead of the one being processed (see later) and R14 is used as the link
register which allows a subroutine to return to the calling program. You
will remember that the ARM has a pipeline for instructions so that while
one is being executed, the next is being decoded and the third is being
fetched from memory. Thus, the PC must point to the third instruction,
even though the first is being executed, i.e. two beyond.
7.8
To help readability, the register numbers can be replaced with
meaningful names which is done in the Basic part of the program. e.g.
7.8
linestart = 4
7.8
xcounter  = 5
7.8
pixvalue  = 6
7.8
dataddress= 7
7.8
linelimit = 8
7.8
Note that ‘linestart’ in the assembly code is replaced on assembly by 4,
etc. In assembly code, R4 or 4 mean the same.
7.8
If ‘displaystart’ is an address which contains the address we want,
7.8
LDR linestart,displaystart
7.8
transfers the address of the start of screen memory into ‘linestart’
(R4).
7.8
The pattern will contain 200 lines, each 640 pixels long thus a total of
128,000 pixels, will be written. Adding this value to ‘linestart’ will
give a line limit so we will know when to stop the program. This will be
‘linelimit’. I want only to write a line 400 pixels long, so will use
‘xcounter’ to count the position along a line. At the end, I will
increment ‘linestart’ by 640 to reach the start of the next line. The
number 640 arises because I will use mode 15 which has a resolution of
640 × 256 pixels. If a mode with a different resolution were used, these
numbers would have to be changed. In Basic, this would not concern us
since the ‘housekeeping’ is done by the Basic system but when we use
assembler, we are on our own. Exciting, isn’t it!
7.8
Accessing the data
7.8
Using ‘ADR’, the address of the data is put into ‘dataddress’, the
actual value is then put into ‘pixvalue’ using
7.8
LDR pixvalue,[dataddress],#1
7.8
This instruction uses the data in the address in ‘dataddress’ and then
increments ‘dataddress’ by one. So next time I use this instruction, the
new address is ready waiting. One instruction thus does the job of two,
load and then increment.
7.8
Stopping the program
7.8
So that we know when to stop the program, I will test that 128 000
pixels have been ‘written’. As I am using addresses, I will add this
number to the value in ‘displaystart’ and compare this with ‘linestart’
at the end of each iteration, i.e. when the address of the line start is
incremented. A point to watch, no matter what language is used, is that
if a ‘branch if not equal’ or ‘branch if equal’ be used, it is essential
that equality is possible or else termination of the program will never
occur! For this reason, integer variables should be used as counters or
the condition should be ‘branch if greater’ or ‘branch if less’, as
these will always work.
7.8
Writing to the screen
7.8
To write to the screen, we simply store one byte at a suitable address.
This looks complicated because the values in two registers are going to
be added to supply the required address − this is an easy way of writing
to a series of addresses. The ‘B’ after the ‘STR’ instruction is needed
to ensure that the right value is written. ‘STR’ will write four bytes
to memory but the most significant byte will be placed where we wanted
the least significant. Perhaps, with care, four bytes could be written
at once, speeding the process. The colour seen on the screen depends on
the value written, in a non-trivial way!
7.8
The xcounter is incremented and tested to see if a line has been
finished. If not, control is passed back to write another byte and if
the line has been finished, the xcounter is set back to zero and the
linestart address is incremented by 640, so that it has the address of
the start of the next line. The value in ‘linestart’ must be tested to
see if all the pixels have been written. If not, control passes back to
start writing all over again and if they have, the address in the link
register (R14) is placed into the program counter (PC) so that control
is returned to the Basic program. The link register holds the address to
which control is passed when the assembly language program has finished.
This will be the address of the statement after ‘CALL start’ − the
transfer of this address is done for us.
7.8
At the end of the assembly code are the constants in their reserved
spaces set by EQUD. These constants could equally well be put in the
Basic before the assembly code.
7.8
I chose to have a line 400 pixels long but ‘any’ length up to 640 could
be used. There is a catch here in that, due to the way that constants
are held in the instruction, not all values are permitted. The assembler
will tell you if it is wrong! Difficult values can be obtained by
storing a ‘good’ value and adding a smaller ‘good’ value to it.
Experiment and see the results.
7.8
Modifications which could be made include: changing the increment for
the pixvalue or, harder, making two or more lines have the same colour.
How about producing vertical stripes? Diagonal stripes? See if these
changes can be effected by working on the assembly language.
7.8
One way of learning, perhaps, what values produce which colours, is to
start with a simple program, change pixvalue and to note the results.
7.8
I hope that this brief (brief?) introduction will encourage some of you
to try using assembler in your Basic programs.
7.8
Summary
7.8
For best results, try to limit the assembler code to what it can do best
and use Basic for the hard bits, such as input and output. We have seen
that data in Basic can be passed to assembly code which could change it
and return the new data to the same place it started. This is because we
are using addresses as pointers. Most functions will work faster in
assembly code but much more work might be required to implement them.
7.8
As before, comments to Archive or Dr F Crossley, 156 Holmes Chapel Road,
Congleton, Cheshire, CW12 4QB.
7.8
The whole program is shown below so that reference can be made to it.
7.8
 10 REM > GTEST
7.8
 20 DIM   code 128 , data 80000
7.8
 30 MODE 15
7.8
 40 linestart =4
7.8
 50 xcounter  =5
7.8
 60 pixvalue  =6
7.8
 70 dataddress=7
7.8
 80 linelimit =8
7.8
 90 FOR J%=0 TO 199
7.8
100    FOR I%=0 TO 399
7.8
110       K%=J%*400+I%
7.8
120       K%?data=J%
7.8
130    NEXT
7.8
140 NEXT
7.8
150 FOR I%=0 TO 3 STEP 3
7.8
160   P%=code
7.8
170[ OPT I%
7.8
180.start
7.8
190   ADR  R0,vduinput
7.8
200   ADR  R1,displaystart
7.8
210   SWI  “OS_ReadVduVariables”
7.8
220   LDR  linestart,displaystart
7.8
230   ADD  linelimit,linestart,#128000
7.8
240   MOV  xcounter, #0
7.8
250   ADR  dataddress,data  ; address of data in dataddress
7.8
260.loop
7.8
270   LDR  pixvalue,[dataddress],#1 ; get byte from data
7.8
280   STRB pixvalue,[linestart,xcounter] ; store 1 byte on screen
7.8
290   ADD  xcounter,xcounter,#1  ; increment xcounter for next pixel
7.8
300   CMP  xcounter,#400   ; finished line?
7.8
310   BNE  loop     ; no, go back to do more
7.8
320   ADD  linestart,linestart,#640   ; yes, start next line
7.8
330   MOV  xcounter,#0    ; reset xcounter
7.8
340   CMP  linestart,linelimit  ; finished pattern?
7.8
350   BNE  loop    ; no, go back to do more
7.8
360   MOV  PC,R14  ; yes, go back to basic
7.8
370                ; blank line for clarity
7.8
380.vduinput   EQUD  149
7.8
390            EQUD   -1
7.8
400.displaystart  EQUD  1
7.8
410]
7.8
420   NEXT
7.8
430   CLS
7.8
440   CALL start  A
7.8
Numerator Work Cards
7.8
Charles Hill
7.8
This booklet contains 32 worksheets for use with the computer program
Numerator. Each is presented on a single A4 page and an indication of
relevant National Curriculum statements is given at the top of each
page. The levels of difficulty range from L2 to L10 and cover work from
all five ATs.
7.8
The worksheets are designed not only to develop the use of the program
Numerator by easy stages, but also to suggest ways in which teachers may
use the program to motivate pupils, helping them to improve their
understanding of algebra and number work and also providing
opportunities of achieving a number of the statements in AT1.
7.8
To assist pupils who are new to the program, forty-four “Numerator
systems” are provided on eight A4 pages at the back of the booklet. Many
of the worksheets state which of these systems should be drawn as a
first step. The work sheet then suggests activities using the system,
which will enable the pupils to improve their understanding.
7.8
Contrary to the statement inside the front cover, this booklet is
currently available only to registered users of Numerator (free on
application to Longman Logotron). It is provided at no extra charge as
part of the Longman Logotron Numerator pack but is not available for
purchase as a separate item.  A
7.8
Comment Column
7.8
•  Apple’s erroneous claims − Apple Computer Inc. has agreed with Acorn
Computers Ltd to review claims made in Apple’s ‘PowerPC Technology: The
Power Behind the Next Generation of Macintosh Systems’ product
literature. Distributed as part of ‘The Apple Report on PowerPC’
advertising campaign, the brochure makes four statements that Acorn
believes need modification in order to represent accurately both Acorn
and Apple’s position in the development of, and commercial commitment
to, RISC technology.
7.8
The statements that Acorn believes need clarification are as follows:
7.8
“To date, RISC technology has been used only in systems designed for raw
computational power.”
7.8
Acorn has shipped over 300,000 personal computer systems based on RISC
chip architecture. For example, of the computers purchased by UK schools
between the 2nd and 4th quarters of 1993, 50% were Acorn RISC-based
machines. Acorn also supplies RISC-based computers to consumer and
professional markets. These systems are not designed specifically for
raw computational power but rather to provide cost-effective performance
and sophisticated solutions for Acorn’s customers.
7.8
“Apple is the only personal computer vendor publicly committed to moving
its entire product line to RISC technology”.
7.8
Acorn committed to the use of RISC chips when a team was set up to
develop the company’s own RISC chip in 1983. This was followed in 1987
by a public statement of Acorn’s commitment to use RISC across its
product portfolio with launch of the Archimedes range. The evidence of
this commitment is Acorn’s continued development of RISC based products
over the past seven years.
7.8
“.... has resulted in the first mainstream RISC microprocessor that can
be used in low-cost computers”.
7.8
As measured by an independent authority, more ARM processors were
shipped than SPARC chips in 1993. ARM has also sold three times more
chips than the PowerPC consortium. As the latest research shows that ARM
processors are mainstream processors, Acorn contends that this statement
is untrue. (Source: Inside the New Computer Industry, 14th January 1994)
7.8
“No other personal computer company is making the fundamental commitment
to RISC demonstrated by Apple.”
7.8
Acorn launched its first 32 bit RISC computer in 1987 and although Acorn
did not invent RISC, it designed and produced the first low-cost, high
volume chips. Over the past seven years, Acorn has constantly promoted
the case for RISC and has designed and sold products based on ARM’s
technology.
7.8
In 1990, Acorn expanded the availability of this technology by the
formation of ARM Ltd in partnership with Apple and VLSI. The success of
ARM Ltd and the strategy to widen the availability of RISC technology
has resulted in its chips now being used in a range of products
including the Apple Newton.
7.8
As you will guess from the polite nature of the above comments, they are
drawn from Acorn’s press release on the matter. I personally think that
Apple should not be allowed to make such claims and get away with it
just because Acorn cannot afford to enter into legal action against the
Apple giant.
7.8
Since that press release, more literature has come out making further
unsubstantiated claims. I have in front of me a brochure for the new
Power Macs which states, “Apple is the first company to ship personal
computers with RISC-based microprocessors.” They are only seven years
out of date!
7.8
How can we support Acorn in the face of this unfair advertising? Well,
I’m not a legal expert, but I think we should, as individuals, write to
the Advertising Standards Authority (address overleaf) and send copies
to the editors of any magazines which publish the adverts containing
these untrue statements. You could also go into your local Apple centre
and give them some stick, if they are handing out leaflets containing
these untrue statements. Ed.
7.8
(Advertising Standards Authority, Complaints Department, Brook House,
2−16 Torrington Place, London, WC1E 7HN.)
7.8
•  Archive Open Day − We thought readers would be interested to know
what happened at the NCS Open Day last month. We had nearly 600 people
through in the day and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. The range of
exhibitors and demonstrations was excellent and we were delighted to
receive support from so many ‘top-notch’ Acorn-related companies and
organisations.
7.8
The Archive stand, manned by Hugh Eagle, David Holden, Richard Rymarz
and Trevor Sutton was busy all day and the PD software copy-it-yourself
contributions box organised by David raised about £30 for charity. The
Charity Bring & Buy Sale did very well, raising just over £300 during
the course of the day. The refreshments stand was another popular area,
again run in aid of charity and the profit from that was £130. In all,
we were able to raise a total of £475 and this money will be sent, not
to Battersey (or even Battersea) Cats’ Home(!) but to Quidenham
Children’s Hospice caring for terminally ill children.
7.8
Archive subscribers came to the Open Day from various parts of the
country. The two longest distance travellers that I came across were
John Fidler from Newport, Isle of Wight and John Holden from West Kirby
on the Wirral. Was anyone else there from further afield?
7.8
Thanks very much to all who helped on the day − we couldn’t have done it
without you: Vera Cooke, Amanda Todd, David Webb, Matthew Hunter (i.e.
the paid NCS team) plus Gabriel Swords, Rosemary Swords, Catherine
Swords, Jonathan Swords, Sue Beverley, Kay Roberts (Sue’s Mum!), Tim
Beverley, Jonathan Beverley, Martin Booth, Martin Sellars, David Holden,
Richard Rymarz, Hugh Eagle, Trevor Sutton, Neil Walker, Chris Walker,
Val Bryce, Edward Croot, Brian Barr and Jos Baynes-Clarke. The spirit of
Archive was once again being demonstrated. Thank you!
7.8
•  Archive Open Day Nightmare − The Open Day was definitely a “learning
experience” for us as organisers because of electrical supply problems.
What we learned may prove useful to others doing similar events. It took
place in a school and, to provide a “proper” electric supply to the
exhibitors, we employed an electrical contractor to install two separate
ring mains from the supply on the stage at the end of one of the two
adjacent halls. These two circuits went through two separate 30amp RCD
circuit breakers and into a third 63amp breaker.
7.8
As exhibitors arrived and started connecting up equipment, the circuit
breakers kept tripping out! I didn’t seem to matter what we did, we
couldn’t keep both circuits going together for more than 5 minutes. In
desperation, I left one circuit on for half an hour telling the
exhibitors that at the end of that time I would bring in the other
circuit and, when they both fell over would allow the other circuit to
have power on its own for half an hour. What actually happened was that
when I added in the second circuit it stayed on and continued to do so
all day even though more computers were added.
7.8
Why did that happen? Well, the theory we have is that when monitors come
in from the cold, having been transported, they can pick up
condensation. This condensation was enough, with the EHT voltages, to
cause a small earth leakage. As the earth leakage from all the various
monitors added together, it came to more than the 30mA that the main RCD
needed to cause it to trip. The half hour for which that one set of
monitors was on was enough for them to warm up and dry out, thus
reducing the leakage to manageable levels, even when the other set were
added.
7.8
Those first two hours before the power was sorted out were a nightmare,
so if(!) we do another Open Day, we would state that only one monitor
should be used per stand for the first half hour and then allow
exhibitors to add more.
7.8
If anyone else has had similar problems or has any suggestions, perhaps
they would let us know! Is there an easy was to check monitors for
leakage current so that we can test our theory? Ed.
7.8
•  BJC600 + Turbo Driver − I have just purchased a BJC-600 and Turbo
Driver. It is interesting to note that on my ARM3 powered A310, it is
CPU speed which limits printing speed. I suppose that I can understand
why this should be the case when printing colour since there are four
heads to think about instead of just one. But even when printing purely
black and white pages rendering (but not printing) seems to take
significantly longer than on my old DeskJet Turbo Driver. I’m not
complaining though, the colours are fantastic and it’s quite fast enough
for most of my needs.
7.8
I have performed a very simple experiment to test the speed of the CC
BJC­600 Turbo Driver in both “Mono” and “4 Colour, All” modes. I printed
two documents, both demos provided with Impression II; firstly the
“Twiggy” page from ImpDemo which is entirely monochrome and secondly the
last page of LD_Demo which contains some coloured graphs. In both cases,
I was using my ARM3 powered A310 in mode 98 (which is very much like
mode 31). I measured the time taken to return control to Impression and
the total time until the paper was ejected. The results are summarised
below:
7.8
       Twiggy         LD_Demo
7.8
Time (seconds)  Colour  Mono  Colour  Mono
7.8
Return control  82  32  111  43
7.8
Eject Paper  113  98  124  103
7.8
Basically, this demonstrates that the Turbo Driver renders more rapidly
in Mono mode than it does in colour. This is not surprising for a colour
image, but the two copies of Twiggy were identical. Remember that this
is a four colour system, so it was just using the black cartridge in
both cases. On a slower (i.e. non-ARM3 machine), the difference in paper
eject times would be closer to the return control times since the
printer would be more likely to keep up with the computer.
7.8
When the BJC­600 dip switches are set as recommended by CC, the printer
defaults to Monochrome mode. The Color (sic) light illuminates at the
start of each print job and goes out again at the end. This happens even
when the Turbo Driver is set to mono. I am not sure what to conclude
from this (it may well be irrelevant).  Richard Simpson, Farnborough
7.8
•  DTP dabbling − As a new subscriber to Archive (having taken advantage
of your £4 introductory offer) I thought your readers might like to know
how I use my Acorn A5000.
7.8
My current job is as a Regional Sales Manager and I use Impression 2.18,
Eureka 2 and Squirrel 2 (amongst many others) to keep tabs on sales
performance and all administrative details. Additionally, I really enjoy
“dabbling” in DTP, having set all the latest work sheets for my company
(a division of Boots the Chemist).
7.8
My most recent project has come towards the end of our financial year
and money is tight, so I decided to do the work myself rather than use
an expensive bureau! This project, above all others, leads me to believe
that the Acorn platform has an excellent future, especially with ARM700
machines and Impression Publisher to come (anybody looking at a
PhotoShop equivalent?). This job consisted of a leaflet for parents-to-
be of babies who may suffer from kidney problems after birth. The text
was written by the hospital staff (all senior consultants) and required
the hospital logo, the children’s unit logo, a simple diagram and my
company’s logo. Using Impression, I entered the text and chose suitable
fonts from the LOOKsystems Monotype package − that part was very easy.
7.8
With regards to the graphics, I cannot get into Draw or Paint, never
mind ArtWorks, so I had the originals scanned at 800dpi by BirdTech in
Great Yarmouth who charged me £2 per scan and returned the discs within
four days (excellent service or what!). I then converted the graphics
(except my company’s logo) to Draw using Trace and added lines to the
diagram. I dropped them into Impression and printed them out at 300dpi
and my representative took them in for proofing. Apart from three
technical spelling mistakes, the customers accepted it immediately. Then
the problem we all face, who prints it? T-J Reproductions are the answer
not just for the quality of their printing but the superb price and the
help, advice and support that Tony Tolver will give any true Acorn
enthusiast. The whole job cost £149 (inc VAT) for an A4 folded to A5
pamphlet, reflex blue on white 80gsm paper, 2,000 copies. Other bureaux
wanted between £260 and £350 plus VAT. Perhaps I should have charged for
my time!  Keith Parker, Southall.
7.8
•  Font problems and solutions − I had a couple of problems with
LOOKsystems’ FontDir − a clash with ArtWorks due to FontDir not
recognising the Artfonts directory within the ArtWorks application and
document scanning not working correctly with Impression Style documents.
I wrote to LOOKsystems on January 17th detailing these difficulties and
received back from Adrian Look, a letter dated January 26th. This
included an updated version of FontDir which solved both the problems.
Excellent service by any standards!
7.8
However, there is a problem with the RISC OS 3 versions of the
LOOKsystems’ Monotype Fonts and the Computer Concepts’ Turbo Drivers
(and the Laser Direct drivers) − some punctuation characters are printed
incorrectly spaced. Adrian says that it is the Turbo Drivers that are
not conforming to Acorn’s latest standards for the kerning data of RISC
OS 3 fonts. The person I spoke to at Computer Concepts appeared to be
unaware of the problem but he was able to suggest that I tried turning
off halftoning of text. (I also found it interesting that he made no
attempt to deny that it is a Turbo Driver problem.) This I did and the
fonts now print correctly but it does mean that text cannot be printed
in anything other than black (or white on a black background). (And I
think you will find the printing is somewhat slower. Ed.) For me, this
is not a major problem as most of my documents do not use greyscale
text. For those that do, I have also installed the standard Acorn driver
for the Canon Bubblejet − the main problem is remembering to use it when
necessary!
7.8
Adrian tells me that even though the fault is with the Turbo Drivers, he
hopes in the near future to upgrade the font installation application to
allow a ‘Computer Concepts’ compatible format. (He has now done this −
apparently the problem lies in that the kerning pairs are not being
properly decoded. Adrian has produced a new version of his !Install
program which makes it so that the drivers don’t have to do any
decoding. Ed.)
7.8
Finally, the application !Kerner from Design Concept produces kerned
RISC OS 3 fonts that appear to be in the same format as the Monotype
fonts, as the same characters cause problems when printed using the
Turbo Drivers.  Nick Edgar, Doncaster.
7.8
•  HD drives on old Archimedes? − You asked whether anyone knew if Risc
Developments’ high density drive interfaces worked OK. Well, there were
some problems but now that RD have issued some new firmware, they seem
to be OK. I have one working on my A540 with a 1.6Mb drive and an 800Kb
drive attached to the same card. I did have a problem at installation in
that the existing floppy drive would not work on the interface but I
have a Watford Electronics drive and that works OK so I am well-pleased
with the system.  Mike Hobbs, Basingstoke.
7.8
•  Impression Style − Not really a plea for help, just a comment. My
quibble regards the toolbar which, in mode 20, overshoots the screen to
the right thus leaving all tools on the right hand side inaccessible via
this method. This is mentioned in the manual, but surely makes a mockery
of mode independence that should be observed by RISC OS software. If
scaling is impractical, could CC not have implemented an alternative
toolbar selectable by the user via preferences, for those of us who do
not want to work in wide screen modes. The dictionary screen from
Wordworks also initially appears half off the screen in mode 20 and
therefore has to be moved before use. I would also like to see the way
that Impression handles windows made user-configurable as was achieved
with NewLook. It is more difficult to line windows up if they are
allowed to leave the desktop to the top and left and would like to be
able to only move windows from the screen to the bottom and right.  Dave
Floyd, London NW10.
7.8
•  Ixion re-review − In his review in Archive 7.5 p32, Jean-Paul
Hamerton concluded that “If this game were cheaper, I would recommend it
but with the bad packaging, I don’t feel I can.” Since that review, the
price of Ixion has dropped from £25.99 to £19.99 and the packaging has
been significantly improved. It now comes in a strong white cardboard
box completely covered with a full-colour cardboard sleeve − it all
looks very impressive. How’s that for response to constructive
criticism?!  Ed.
7.8
•  JPEG (Archive 7.7 p43) − My Russian cousin Lars Opliof (also an
Archive subscriber), tells me that the ‘JPEG’ algorithm in this case is
not the one developed by the Joint Photographic Experts Group of ISO/IEC
JTC1 but the ‘Jake-the-Peg (with the extra leg, deedle-deedle-deedle-
dum)’ algorithm, and if used with an even number of bits-per-pixel, will
only compress the file sideways. Files with such an extreme aspect ratio
can only be displayed in mode 1494, which is not available in RISC OS
3.10.  John Woodgate, Rayleigh, Essex.
7.8
•  Laser printers for Acorn computers − The editor asked which laser
printers people found that worked OK on Acorn machines. I have just
bought an OKI OL400ex costing under £500 and it works very well,
printing a page at 300 dpi in just under a minute. If you do lots of
complex drawfiles and sprites, you may need a 2Mb RAM upgrade but that
only costs about £100. I’m certainly very pleased with my buy.  John
Hooker, Uckfield.
7.8
•  Stability of Impression Style, (3.01) − CC has certainly done a good
job with Style, but some minor bugs should urgently be fixed.
7.8
− Building up very large documents still has some room for improvements.
7.8
The claim that Style has virtual memory management is grossly
exaggerated (each individual chapter still has to fit completely into
RAM), and when I tried to repeat the actions described in Archive 6.12,
p32, I sometimes only got as far as the message, “This operation will
change a document on disc”. When I acknowledged it, Style died with
various error messages.
7.8
On the other hand, the word count now works perfectly and the
performance when processing files of 4Mb or more seems to be about the
same as in Impression 2.17.
7.8
− This isn’t a bug but something which I find mildly frustrating: When
you select something and replace it by typing in something new, that
text will be given the style active behind the selected text. This means
that trying to replace a piece of “stylish” text in this way will
usually mean that the new characters appear in the default style.
7.8
− The “remove document” bug which was reported in Archive 7.7, p19, at
least is not quite as bad as stated. Adjust-clicking to remove documents
from memory causes a crash only when you click onto a name that is
ticked because a view of the document is still on the screen.
7.8
− Still on the subjects raised in Archive 7.7, p19: The installation
program worked without any problem at all with the Morley SCSI card
(software revision 1.14).
7.8
Now for the good news: I have just been told at the CeBIT computer show
that version 3.03 of Style is almost ready and that this should be free
of those bugs so far reported.  Jochen Konietzko, Köln, Germany.
7.8
•  Style Guide − I have expended significant effort in getting !ArcTrack
to comply with the Acorn Style Guide. It is not always a very easy task,
and if I find the time, I will write an article containing a few
suggestions. In the mean time here are a few comments to add to Hugh
Eagle’s article (7.6 p50).
7.8
− The improved font selection scheme is an excellent idea, but it must
be sufficiently versatile to allow for the fact that not all fonts come
in the nice regular families of those in the ROMs.
7.8
− If dialogue boxes don’t have Close icons, how are you supposed to
iconise them?
7.8
− The problems with filenames in Save boxes drives me mad as well.
7.8
− On-line Help is easy to implement (except possibly for menus) and
everyone selling quality applications should include it irrespective of
what the Style Guide says.
7.8
− RISC_OSLib makes it extremely difficult to implement pop-up menus (see
page 96 of the guide). I have succeeded and will try to send details to
Archive soon. I wrote to Acorn asking if I could have a copy of the new
RISC OS 3 version of the library which they have released to registered
developers. I hoped that it would make pop-up menus easy (amongst other
things). After a long delay, they sent me a small application which uses
the current library to do it the hard way. Having spent £240 on a piece
of software, am I expected to pay another £180 per year in order to
receive support for it? Why were those who have purchased legitimate
copies of Desktop C not provided with an updated version of RISC_OSLib
within a few months of RISC OS 3.1 being released? I am changing over to
DeskLib at the earliest opportunity.
7.8
− The Style Guide briefly mentions what a good idea internationalisation
is and the PRM bangs on about it at some length. I have done my best to
ensure that !ArcTrack has international support in the hope that months
and days of the week will be correctly translated when the program is
run in other countries. However, I have no way of knowing whether I have
succeeded since I only have the UK Territory Module. I therefore asked
Acorn if they could let me have a copy of a Territory Module for ANY
non-English-speaking country. They told me that the only other Territory
Module was the one built into the German ROMs and therefore I couldn’t
have one to try. If anyone either knows of another available Territory
Module or has managed to get the German one onto disc then I would be
interested in hearing from them.  Richard Simpson, Farnborough.
7.8
•  Tapestreamer backup − The Iomega 250Mb tapestreamers are available in
the PC world for around £139 +VAT. Why doesn’t someone in the Acorn
world write some software for them to run on Archimedes machines?
Atomwide? Adrian Look? David Pilling? You can do it!  David White,
Cambridge.
7.8
•  Using an Archimedes − a more conventional user in a less conventional
setting.
7.8
I am a physical science teacher at a Catholic boarding school for about
550 girls at Mulanje in Malawi. I brought my A310, my BBC B and my Z88
with me, along with a KX-P1124 printer. The BBC was for data-logging and
display use in class but I found that the technology was more of a
distraction than a clarification, and have not followed this up.
7.8
My contract requires me to produce an educational project of value both
to the school and the country and I am producing a set of class notes
for the whole physical science syllabus (which is not only pre-GCSE but
pre-Nuffield science) for display on an overhead projector. Several
schools have OHPs that are unused due to a lack of both expertise and
materials. The originals are produced using Impression 2 and Artworks,
printed (oh so slowly!) onto A4 and them photocopied onto acetate to
give a very good looking and permanent transparency. The discipline of
getting as much information as possible on an A4 sheet at 32 point
(which is about the most comfortable font size) as clearly and
succinctly as possible, works well because of the flexibility of a DTP
system where alteration is so easy. It is all so much clearer than the
handwritten slides I have used in the past.
7.8
A further advantage is that I want to put all the notes together on
paper. By reducing the text to 10 point and the diagrams accordingly, I
can get it all on about 50 sides of A4. These could then be of use,
especially to new teachers, even if they have no OHP. You cannot do that
kind of reduction even with the most sophisticated photocopier.
7.8
Very few schools here have computers and hardly anyone on the staff has
any experience of them. Anything not handwritten is typed (not always
very well) and because photocopiers are very expensive to buy and to
run, circulars, exams, class lists, etc are typed on stencils and run
off on a Gestetner duplicator. By removing the ribbon, I can produce
good stencils on my printer. I think this is frowned upon as the head
could become clogged but I have done this without ill-effect for 18
months and friends in another school have done so for longer. We have
also done programmes for school events and a 32-page school magazine
this way.
7.8
Smart room labels and personal cupboard labels have been done, as well
as special reports when presentation was important. My exams are usually
done in PipeDream, with the system printer to save time, and when I was
teaching maths, I found WorraCad very good for the geometry diagrams,
especially as I find the way the Artworks draws circles very irritating.
All these will be run-of-the-mill things in a UK school but here they
are things to wonder at.
7.8
I have a responsibility for a small group of Anglican pupils and they
wanted to learn some new hymns. Virtually all music is unaccompanied and
learned by ear, often with peculiar results. So, using Studio 24 and a
Yamaha synthesizer, I produced some accompaniments with an emphasised
melody line and put them on tape so that they could get together and
learn them in their spare time.
7.8
My wife does a lot of needlework and wanted to make wall-hangings of
African birds, butterflies and trees, so, by digitising video film and
pictures from books, simplified drawings suitable for transferring with
carbon paper onto the fabric could be produced. A spin-off was the use
of a couple of the bird images to make some rather nice book-marks; as
the birds are black and white, the lack of a colour printer does not
matter. A very good local artist had done a sketch of me and when I
wanted a CV (in the hope of getting a job on my return!) in leaflet
style rather than the usual A4 sheet, I scanned the sketch to use as a
cover picture. The effect is quite good but whether it will do the trick
is another matter!
7.8
All this is, of course, in addition to the usual correspondence (in
PipeDream), score sheets for the Golf Club competitions, presentation
addresses for visiting Ministers, a newsletter for members of our
scheme, a plan of the school for maintenance purposes, year planners,
business card and so on. This increasingly venerable Archimedes − still
without ARM3 or RISC OS 3 − has become almost indispensable in this out-
of-the-way part of the world. When do I find time? No telly, four staff
meetings a term and no National Curriculum, living on the job, 40 rough
miles to the nearest bright lights all certainly help. However, I wish
NCS were a bit nearer. My floppy disc appears to have died, no competent
repairer in the country, and 4−6 weeks for the post to get here with a
new one. When your technology goes wrong here, patience is not a virtue
but a dire necessity.  Howard Gorringe, Malawi.  A
7.8
The Advance Column
7.8
Robert Chrismas
7.8
When the Advance Column started, it attracted very few readers’ letters.
I made increasingly desperate pleas for correspondence. I am now getting
plenty of letters. Please continue to send comments, advice and
problems, but there is no further need for sympathetic letters just
because I sound a bit lonely.
7.8
Database fields, enumerated values
7.8
In the database, you can use tick boxes (boolean fields) for information
which can take one of two values, Yes/No, Male/Female, Left/Right, etc.
7.8
We sometimes need a field which can store just a few different values.
For example, a file of information about a CD collection might have a
field describing the type of music classified as ‘Classical’, ‘Jazz’,
‘Rock’, ‘Folk’ or ‘Other’. Records of cricketers might include a field
‘How Out’ which just holds the values ‘Bowled’, ‘Caught’, ‘LBW’, ‘Run
Out’, etc.
7.8
I have described these fields as ‘enumerated’ because they are like the
enumerated variables in languages like Pascal and C. At the start of the
program, the programmer declares enumerated variables and lists the
values they may take.
7.8
Many databases allow validation tests which can force a field to take
just one of a set of different values. The Advance database does not
include this sort of validation test but you can create a ‘value list’
from which the user can select the value for a field.
7.8
When you are editing the record layout, select the required field and
enter the list of possible values on the Edit/Fields/Values dialogue
box. The values must be separated by commas.
7.8
When you are creating or editing records, as soon as the cursor moves to
the field, a menu will pop up with a list of values. A click on this
menu enters the value. However, the user can ignore the menu and type in
a value in the usual way so the contents of the field are not actually
restricted to the values on the menu.
7.8
The menu of values pops up when the field is edited
7.8
You can create values lists for any data type except boolean. If you
include a text value on the menu for a numeric field, it will appear on
the menu. However, when you click on it, to enter the value, the
database will complain, just as if you had tried to type the text in
manually.
7.8
The graphics package can show the frequency with which each value
occurs. Set the ‘Y’ axis to the required field and the ‘X’ axis to none.
You can produce pie, bar and line graphs of these frequencies.
7.8
Disappearing text and Advance support
7.8
Professor Noel Thompson from Harrow wrote to advise/remind readers that
if they delete all their text by inadvertently hitting <ctrl-A> as they
are typing, the text can be recovered with <ctrl-V>.
7.8
He contacted Computer Concepts about the WP program only to be told that
CC do not own their part of Advance nor do they support it. Fortunately,
Acorn replied to his fax with helpful advice. However, there does not
seem much chance of upgrades (or even bug fixes) if the original
software developers are no longer involved with Advance.
7.8
The <ctrl-A> key combination occurs in some other programs and in some
(e.g. Style) its effect came be just as disconcerting. I think Paul
should explain how ‘Keystroke’ can be used to overcome this problem.
(I’ve been a bit busy this month(!!!) but I’ll see if I can look at this
one for next month. Ed.)
7.8
Kerning
7.8
Advance and Impression use the same ‘Document Description File’ (DDF)
format. Advance seems to be able to display text correctly even if it
includes DDF commands which are not editable in Advance.
7.8
One of the easiest formatting commands to use is ‘kern’. In electronic
DTP, kerning means making small adjustments to the position of a letter,
usually to improve the spacing between the letters in a word. It may
also include adjustments to the vertical position.
7.8
Like all the other DDF commands ‘kern’ is enclosed in curly brackets and
it has two parameters, e.g. ‘’ where the horizontal displacement is −72
and the vertical displacement is 144.
7.8
To add commands which Advance cannot insert, you must first save the
file as text with effects. The text file can then be loaded into Edit
where the commands can be inserted. Finally, the text is saved back to
Advance replacing the original text.
7.8
The text file includes all the formatting information as well as the
original text. You may have to search to locate your words. In a typical
document, the first 1Kb is all formatting commands.
7.8
In the illustration above, the spacing of the first ‘ADVANCE’ has not
been altered. The space between the ‘V’ and the ‘A’ looks a little
bigger than the other spaces. In the second ‘ADVANCE’ the ‘A’ has been
moved a little to the left. Only the last few lines of the text file are
shown.
7.8
This is just one example of the way ‘extra’ DDF commands can be used.
Perhaps it is possible to create at least the appearance of text running
down the side of a graphic using a similar trick?
7.8
Send comments, ideas, suggestions and problems to Robert Chrismas, 8
Virginia Park Road, Gosport, Hants PO12 3DZ.  A
7.8
Creating the list of values
7.8
PipeLineZ
7.8
Gerald Fitton
7.8
Thanks for all the letters you’ve sent to us this month. If you’re going
to the Acorn User Spring Show at Harrogate then come and have a chat
with Jill and me. We’ve been invited to attend as guests on the Colton
Software stand. I’ve been told that the Windows version of Fireworkz
will be on display but won’t be available for purchase yet. I wonder if
that implies that the new Acorn machines will run Windows as well as the
Desktop?
7.8
Elementary PipeDream
7.8
It seems that Ernie Cobbold’s ‘Book on a disc’ is filling a much wanted
need. Perhaps it’s all the new users of PipeDream 4 who want to get into
it as quickly as possible. As I said last month, I think the ‘book’ is
good – but by the time you read this, you may find a review in Archive
by someone more independent than I.
7.8
Stamps
7.8
First a mistake! I wrote that the cost of letters increased in 20p
increments. As Colin Singleton has pointed out, this is not so. I don’t
know how I made the mistake but it must have been when I edited a
version which said something like “10p and 20p increments up to 77p”.
Colin also asks for clarification about what I mean by the ‘best’
selection of stamps, pointing out that using nothing but 1p stamps will
minimise the value of the stock! As Colin surmised, that certainly
wasn’t the answer I wanted.
7.8
I’ve also received a program in Basic from Ivor Cook for UK postage
stamps. Ivor is an ex-Post Master and says, “I can vouch for the
difficulties which stamp selection can create, especially when customers
are waiting at the counter”! Ivor’s program uses current stamp values
and the result of his algorithm is that no more than two stamps are used
for weights up to 400g and never more than three stamps for (almost) any
weight. His program called [Postage] is on the monthly disc.
7.8
Using his program for a typical week of our post, I find that, for UK
use, I used only the following stamp values: 6p, 19p, 25p, 29p, 36p,
38p, 41p, 50p! Further investigation of Ivor’s program reveals that all
1st and 2nd class values up to 400g can be realised with a selection of
no more than two stamps from those eight stamp values.
7.8
The ‘basic solution’ of Ivor is the sort of thing I had in mind and,
although I can’t speak for Danny Fagandini, I suspect that such a
selection is close to the answer to his question. My ‘instinct’, which
was to buy 10p and 20p stamps, seems to be based on nothing more than
the fact that adding 10 makes the sums easy!
7.8
What we need now is a spreadsheet solution and a similar program for
overseas mail. Our two most popular overseas values are 42p and 54p
which I now make up with stamps from the eight values given above.
36p + 6p = 42p and 29p + 25p = 54p. Until I receive a better algorithm,
our next purchases of stamps will be the above eight values and I’ll
make up any other values of postage ‘by hand’ until someone comes up
with an Archimedes solution. Does anyone feel able to help?
7.8
Matrix inversion
7.8
Although it’s early days yet, the only contribution I’ve had to this
discussion so far is from Jonathan Ormond. He has sent in a PipeDream
spreadsheet inversion algorithm for a 4 by 4 matrix using co-
determinants. It works well. I have included his application as the file
[InvMat4] on the monthly disc. The only time it fails is if the matrix
is ‘ill-conditioned’ (i.e. when its determinant is near zero). I have
searched through my memory banks and the phrase ‘pivotal condensation’
came into my mind.
7.8
I think I remember using a method (it seems a long time ago) having that
name which was reputed to be more amenable to ‘computerisation’ (I hate
that word)! I can’t find any notes about it but my recollection is that
you extend the matrix (to the right) with a unit matrix and then
manipulate rows (adding multiples of one row to another) until the
original part of the matrix becomes a unit matrix. My recollection,
which is only half remembered, is that, when the original (left) half
has become a unit matrix, the right half of the extended matrix is the
inverse of the original.
7.8
Lost Wordz
7.8
Since my offer to recover ‘lost’ data appeared in last month’s Archive,
I have received about a dozen discs with this problem. How many more
will I get before this article is published? In the hope of reducing
some of this category of correspondence, here’s something you can try
before sending your disc to me (or to Mark Colton). Load a new empty
Wordz or Fireworkz template which you know is OK. I have included some
suitable templates on the monthly disc. Drag your ‘empty’ file into the
new open window. In many cases, you will recover the ‘lost’ data. Save
the file under a new name. Your next step is to delete unwanted styles.
If you use my templates, do not attempt to delete the ZLBase nor the
ZLHeadFoot style. Save the file before deleting your own BaseStyle or
HeadFoot base style – sometimes that results in a crash!
7.8
Unwanted commas again
7.8
If you create a chart in Fireworkz and you don’t want values over 1000
to show the comma (i.e. you don’t want 1,000) on the x-axis, a simple
way of avoiding it is to change the numbers which generate the axis
‘labels’ into text. Of course you won’t be able to do sums on the text
version of the numbers but that’s probably a problem you can work around
even if it means an extra column and using the ‘Make constant’ command.
7.8
The Fireworkz lookup(,,) function
7.8
It was Denis Murray-Smith who first put to me the problem of finding the
column heading of the column containing the minimum value for that row.
His problem was that of finding the best shop in which to buy a
particular item when you know the prices of the items in each of many
shops. The general problem is of wider application. For example, you may
wish to find out which of many subjects are best for each pupil and then
go on to find out which subject is best received! One of my
correspondents now uses a slight variant of this application to check
which of many types of investment is best for her.
7.8
In the November 1993 edition of Archive, I gave details of my PipeDream
‘solution’ to this problem. I expected to port that solution to
Fireworkz but, when I ported the PipeDream file to Version 1.07 of
Fireworkz, it didn’t work for the reason I describe below.
7.8
Although I have received a score of letters asking for details of a
similar application for use with Fireworkz, I have delayed describing a
work-around, believing that Version 1.08 was just around the corner and
that the PipeDream application would port across to Version 1.08 and
work first time. However, so many of you have asked me how to get
lookup(,,) to work in V 1.07 that I have decided to explain the work
around.
7.8
The screenshot below shows a simple spreadsheet which I’ve called
[Shopping]. The names of the products appear in column a as Alpha, Beta,
Gamma and Delta. The names of the shops appear in row 6 as Shop 1,
Shop 2, Shop 3 and Shop 4. Of course, you could have many more items and
a much greater choice of shops.
7.8
Data (prices) is entered in the block b8e11. Column f contains a formula
which calculates the cheapest price for the item in each row. Column g
contains a formula which returns the name of the shop having the lowest
price.
7.8
The price of each of the four items in each of the four shops appears in
the range of slots b8e11. The formula in slot f8 is min(b8e8), and it
returns the lowest price in row 8.
7.8
The slot g8 contains the formula
7.8
lookup(f8,transpose(b8e8),transpose( b$6e$6))
7.8
The difference between the Fireworkz formula and the PipeDream formula
is the use of the transpose() function.
7.8
The arguments of the lookup(,,) formula are:
7.8
f8 – the key field containing the minimum price
7.8
b8e8 – the range in which you hope to find f8 (the minimum price)
7.8
b$6e$6 – the range which contains the value to be returned (the shop).
7.8
Note the $ characters in this last range; these ensure that, as you
replicate the formula from g8 down through the column g (see below), the
final argument of the lookup(,,) function does not change.
7.8
For example, in the slot g11 you will find lookup(
f11,transpose(b8b11),transpose(b$6e$6)).
7.8
When you port the PipeDream version (which doesn’t have the transpose
function) to Fireworkz it doesn’t work. It seems that, in Fireworkz,
lookup(,,) works only with vertical arrays. The work around is to
include the transpose() function, as I have in this example, to convert
the rows to (invisible) columns.
7.8
The formulae in f8 and g8 have been replicated down the two columns
using the following technique. Place the cursor in f8 and drag from f8
to g11 to mark the block f8g11. Click on the ‘Fill down’ button which is
at the top left of the first button bar. You can extend the formulae
down as many rows as you wish.
7.8
Fixing rows & columns in Fireworkz
7.8
Many of you have suggested to me that one of the advantages that
PipeDream has over Fireworkz is that, in PipeDream, you can fix a row
containing column headings so that the headings remain visible as you
scroll down through the document.
7.8
In Fireworkz, you can achieve the same effect using the ‘Split window’
feature. If you click on the View control button (it looks like a pair
of glasses) at the left of the button bar, you will open a dialogue
window similar to that shown above. The two buttons you need to ‘press’
are the ones marked Horizontal split and Vertical split. Do this and
then click on the OK button.
7.8
The screenshot below shows the result. The original Fireworkz window has
split into four connected windows. I have arranged for rows 1 to 3 to
appear in the upper part and rows 10 to 14 in the lower part. Column a
appears in the left part and columns e to n in the right part.
7.8
You can adjust the size of each of the four windows using the usual
Desktop handles and you can scroll through each of the four windows with
the scroll bars. All the windows are connected so you can make changes
in any of the four windows.
7.8
There is another related facility available in Fireworkz that PipeDream
doesn’t have. It is the New view option. If you have another look at the
screen shot at the top of the previous page, you will see the New view
button on the right. If you select New view, you will find yourself with
two views of the same spreadsheet.
7.8
Although you can load the same spreadsheet twice in PipeDream, the two
documents are completely independent; in Fireworkz, the two views are of
the same document and so changes in one will immediately be displayed in
the second. A typical screen display is shown above.
7.8
Finally
7.8
Of the letters I received this month, more than usual include a phrase
similar to “Keep up the good work!”. I would like to take this
opportunity to say a “Thank you!” for expressing your gratitude. It
makes it all worthwhile.
7.8
Maybe we’ll see you at Harrogate?  A
7.8
Help!!!!
7.8
•  Acorn Access − I installed Acorn Access for a friend of mine and
everything appears to work fine except that it throws out a spurious
error − Expression is not a string − during the boot sequence. As the
cards were purchased from NCS, I rang to see if anyone else had come
across this before, and while Matthew was very helpful, his suggested
solution of placing !System higher in the !Boot file has had no effect.
The error only occurs when the second machine (of two) in the network is
booted so I can only assume it is directly attributable to Acorn Access
and is a bug in Acorn’s software. It is not critical and everything
works fine, just annoying!  Dave Floyd, London NW10.
7.8
•  C problems − In Archive 6.12 p33, I described how to get menu help to
work in C without the aid of the unavailable new RISC_OSLib.
Unfortunately, the process which I described has a drawback. Since
wimpt_init is now not called, the library is no longer informed of the
full name by which the program wishes to be known. This name is used in
the box which reports internal errors in the form “Error from X”. These
now simply read “Error from”. The only solution which I can come up with
(apart from switching to DeskLib) is to add the following line after
win_init().
7.8
strcpy (wimpt_programname (), “ProgName”);
7.8
Anyone who studies how this works, will rapidly realise that it is a bit
of a botch. I am not happy about it myself and it causes DDT to complain
violently. However, with a short program name like ArcTrack it does seem
to work. If anyone has a better solution, please let me know.
7.8
I have been trying to write some C code to make use of the Impulse
module. I have the Impulse II manual from CC, but it is not a model of
clarity. Simple commands work fine, but I am mystified as to how one
initiates a RAM transfer sequence. Anyone else had any success? Richard
Simpson, 16 Ashridge Cove, Farnborough, GU14 9UY.
7.8
•  Modules galore? − I was interested to read about the availability of
the Drawfile module (Archive 7.7 p53). Does anyone know of any other
modules available − particularly anything to do with sound, e.g. a
Maestro player? Information about such modules would avoid a lot of
duplication of effort amongst programmers.  Paul Hobbs, Ingolstadt,
Germany.
7.8
•  Templates − Does anyone know of a program that will convert a
template file into code which I can use in assembler code? Also, is it
possible to get in contact with the programmer who was working on the
“Powershade” raytracer for Arxe. Please contact Stefan Fröhling, An den
Klippen 23, 57462 Olpe, Germany.
7.8
•  VIDC enhancer problems − I bought a VIDC enhancer from a company that
shall remain nameless. It worked OK but the modes designer program did
not. The company ignored all my letters requesting help and some working
software. Does anyone know of any mode design software that will work
with a multiscan VIDC enhancer?
7.8
At the same time I bought a trackerball. It has never worked properly
from the day I got it and the company has ignored all my letters asking
them to fix it or replace it. If someone can get it working, I’ll
happily put it in the charity sale... and I shan’t be buying anything
from that company again. (Name supplied.)
7.8
•  Wordworks − I received Wordworks as part of my upgrade to Impression
Style and everything seemed to work fine until I loaded Wordworks
directly, when I was confronted with an Address Exception at &0000AA60
and the dictionary not being loaded. I contacted Computer Concepts and
was told that deleting the Choices file would rectify this, which it
duly did. Unfortunately, this also means that every time I load
Wordworks, it uses the default settings because any configurations I
make can only be saved by creating another Choices file and thereby
recreating the Address Exception error. Is there another way around this
or will I have to wait for Publisher for the bug to have been
(hopefully) removed?  Dave Floyd, London NW10.
7.8
Help Offered
7.8
•  The ARM Club of Wales − This meets at the Roath Park Community Hall,
Cardiff on Wednesday nights (fortnightly) commencing 6th April 1994. The
meeting is open to non-members. Further details from Mr D.W.Rowlands, 9
Harlech Court, Hendredenny, Caerphilly, CF8 2TR. (0222-868635)  A
7.8
FirstLogo
7.8
Joe Gallagher
7.8
Logo is the only computer language specifically mentioned in the
National Curriculum and whilst many teachers are appreciative of the
power of this open-ended program, a surprising number are intimidated by
the steepness of the learning curve that has to be scaled by teachers as
well as the children!
7.8
The standard Logo available first for the BBC range and later for the
Archimedes series, was Logotron Logo − and this is recognised to be a
powerful implementation of the language. However, it is not noted for
its friendliness to naive users. Many teachers are attracted by the
mathematical potential of turtle graphics but find that even this aspect
of Logo requires a fair bit of hand-holding if they want to introduce it
to young users.
7.8
A mouse driven turtle?
7.8
I was very interested to hear that Logotron, now part of the Longman
group, were producing a version of Logo aimed specifically at younger
children and other (older?) early users. Part of the problem of doing
Logo with young children has always been that of working with the idea
of angles which are always relative to the direction it is currently
pointing. This is usually referred to as its “heading”. Undoubtedly,
this is a useful feature and one which enables children to produce all
those attractive geometrical patterns which tend to adorn books about
Logo. However, for young children this can be quite confusing. It is for
this reason that many experts argue that children should have the
opportunity to “do Logo” with a mechanical turtle such as the Valiant
turtle.
7.8
Most people would agree with this in principle but the practicalities of
everyday class life, let alone the costs involved, mean that it would
not be possible to provide as much exposure to Logo as one would like,
using such a “concrete” approach. This program, FirstLogo, seemed an
ideal way of making the initial learning curve less intimidating by
allowing the child to use the mouse to move a turtle-like figure around
the screen, drawing as it goes.
7.8
Documentation
7.8
The program is accompanied by the customary high standard of
documentation that we have come to expect from the Longman stable. The
guide, although brief, is exceptionally clear and gives some useful
starting points for exploration with young children. The program disc
contains not only the main program but also example procedure files and
several useful background screens which can be loaded into the Picture
window to give a context for exploration with the turtle. The “turtle”
itself can be configured to one of several shapes to match the
background such as a spider to crawl around the scene of a web and so
forth.
7.8
Three ways to draw a line!
7.8
When the program is first started, you are presented with two windows −
the Notepad and the Picture window. The Notepad acts as a command line
interpreter as is found in most standard versions of the language. To
move the turtle, you type in the familiar commands and off the turtle
trundles in the Picture window. One novel feature of this version is
that when you edit a command which you issued earlier, the picture
window is updated accordingly.
7.8
There is an even simpler way to enter commands via the optional Slate.
This is another window which allows the child to write on the Notepad
simply by pressing the appropriate buttons.
7.8
In addition, FirstLogo can be operated almost entirely by mouse control.
The “turtle” can draw simply by being dragged in the desired direction
in the Picture window. The turns and moves are then translated into the
corresponding Logo commands in the Notepad window. This is undoubtedly a
nice feature and one which can only encourage much exploration and
experimentation. However, it would have been all the more useful if it
had been accompanied by the ability to constrain the moves to vertical
and horizontal lines or lines at 45-degree increments, by holding down,
for example, the shift key while executing the move. It is quite
difficult even for experienced hands to draw horizontal and vertical
lines freehand.
7.8
The toolbar
7.8
The Picture window also sports a toolbar which allows access to several
useful functions at the click of a button. These include three pre-
defined shapes, tools for measuring angles and distances, a button to
lift or drop the pen and one to change the colour of the ink. There is
also an icon showing two foot prints. Clicking on this results in the
program stepping through each stage of the work done.
7.8
Procedures
7.8
As a tool for exploring simple turtle graphics, there are few, if any,
complaints I can make about FirstLogo. However, I found that moving on
from this stage to that of using procedures quite frustrating − at least
initially.
7.8
The particular problems I encountered were to do with attempting to re-
use simple procedures by copying them. For instance, if a child were
making a house, he or she, having defined the moves necessary for one
window, could then re-use this code in order to produce another window
at a different point simply by copying the first procedure. Now an
object-orientated type of interface, such as that provided by FirstLogo,
would seem to complement ideally this building block approach towards
Logo. What better way could there be of manipulating procedures than to
have them represented by objects which can be copied or moved around in
different sequences?
7.8
Unfortunately, the way of doing this was not documented in the review
version of the program, either in the manual or in the form of a ReadMe
file on the disc. As a result, I spent several frustrating hours trying
to fathom out how to copy procedures from one part of the Notepad to
another before eventually giving up. A telephone call to Longman
revealed the secret, which is to select the procedure by dragging from
the left of the text margin rather than by double clicking on the object
in question. This information is apparently contained in a readme file
on the current batch of distribution discs. It is not in the manual
itself because Longman felt that it was best left to the teacher to
decide when it was appropriate for the child to have access to this
facility.
7.8
I think that this is a pity, as the “building block” approach is really
the stuff of Logo and it could be argued that the top down approach is
more effectively fostered by easy access to such an important feature of
the language. Moreover, it is not possible, as in most other versions of
the language, to call a procedure by typing its name. Attempting to do
this just results in a beep indicating an error.
7.8
In contrast, it is relatively easy to make more complex super-procedures
out of simpler ones and to repeat the procedures themselves. In this
way, quite elaborate patterns can quickly be built up with very little
programming overhead.
7.8
Conclusion: a step in the right direction?
7.8
While I certainly feel that FirstLogo is a step in the right direction,
it does seem to fall between two stools. On the one hand, the existence
of several windows for executing simple commands could lead to a
cluttered desktop for very young users and, on the other hand, the
process of building procedures seems more fiddly than it need be. I
liked the idea of using objects to denote procedures but, in practice,
manipulating procedures turned out to be not quite as simple nor as
intuitive as I thought they could be.
7.8
As it stands, FirstLogo represents a brave attempt to drag Logo into the
1990’s and bring the joys of the language to a wider audience.
Developing successful classroom practice with such an open-ended program
as Logo does take time and has as much to do with teaching strategies as
the intrinsic merits of a particular implementation of the language. In
the end, it will be the experiences of teachers with young children,
over a sustained period of time, that will determine the success or
failure of this program. Archive’s Educational Column would be an ideal
forum for evaluating a product like this on a long term basis.
7.8
FirstLogo is produced by Longman Logotron and costs £24 +VAT or £26
inclusive through Archive.  A
7.8
Advanced Basic Programming − 2
7.8
Paul Hobbs
7.8
RISC OS messages
7.8
An interesting aspect of RISC OS is the message passing system which is
used extensively by the WIMP Manager to inform applications when a
window needs to be redrawn, for example. What may not be immediately
obvious, however, is that any application can send any message to
another application and that you can define your own messages.
7.8
A practical example would be the simulation of a double click on a file
icon to force a file to be loaded by another application − in fact,
duplicating the function of the Filer_Run command in RISC OS 3. The
advantage of using the following PROC is, of course, that it will work
with RISC OS 2 which Filer_Run will not. Note that some means of
claiming and releasing a block of workspace memory is assumed
(FN_heap_get and PROC_heap_release).
7.8
DEF PROCMessageSendDataLoad(type%,name$)
7.8
LOCAL msg_blk%
7.8
msg_blk%    = FN_heap _get(256)
7.8
msg_blk%!00 = 256   :REM Size of message
7.8
msg_blk%!12 = 0  :REM your_ref (0 = original message not a reply)
7.8
msg_blk%!16 = 5     :REM DataOpen message action code
7.8
msg_blk%!20 = 0     :REM Normally Filer window handle containing
7.8
 the file
7.8
msg_blk%!28 = 0     :REM Normally x offset of icon clicked on
7.8
msg_blk%!32 = 0     :REM Normally y offset of icon clicked on
7.8
msg_blk%!36 = 0     :REM Must be 0
7.8
msg_blk%!40 = type% :REM File type
7.8
$(msg_blk% + 44) = name$ + CHR$(0)
7.8
SYS “Wimp_SendMessage”,17,msg_blk%,0
7.8
PROC_heap_release(msg_blk%)
7.8
ENDPROC
7.8
With the above PROC, it would be possible for an application to create a
drawfile and then send it direct to Draw for viewing, avoiding the need
to write code to render the drawfile.
7.8
Further possibilities include simulating keypresses and menu selections,
bringing windows belonging to other applications to the top, forcing
other applications to shut down, etc. In fact, any message normally sent
by the Filer can be sent by other applications as well.
7.8
Loading template files
7.8
One problem with loading template files is discovering exactly how large
the buffer (which has to contain the largest template definition plus
space for all the indirected data) should be. Kate Crennell kindly sent
a Basic program which works this out, and there are many PD programs
that do the same thing, for example, TemplEd by Dick Alstein.
7.8
However, this is not the complete solution, because once the value
required is discovered, it is not a good idea simply to use this number
in the loading routine. Everything will be fine until someone modifies
the template files. The program will fail if the buffer proves to be too
small.
7.8
In order to make things as robust as possible, I consider the best
approach is to use a function to pass the value required to the loading
routine because then the program should never need altering even if the
template file is edited. The following routine opens the template file
and scans through it, returning the buffer size required.
7.8
TIME = 0
7.8
PROCScanTemplateFile(“Templates”,buff_size%, nr_templates%)
7.8
PRINT “Buffer size required = ” + STR$buff_ size% + “ (&” +
STR$~buff_size% + “)”
7.8
PRINT “Number of templates  = ” + STR$nr_templates%
7.8
PRINT “Time : ”+STR$(TIME/100)+“ secs”
7.8
END
7.8
DEF PROCScanTemplateFile(filename$,RETURN buff_size%,RETURN
nr_templates%)
7.8
LOCAL pos%,total_indirsize%,largest_def%,file_ offset%
7.8
LOCAL buff%,X%,data_size%,entry_type%
7.8
LOCAL ctr%,char%,old_ptr%,nr_icons%,j%, flags%
7.8
REM Returns the size of the buffer needed by “Wimp_LoadTemplate”
7.8
pos% = 0:nr_templates% = 0:total_indirsize% = 0:largest_def% = 0
7.8
buff%    = FN_heap_get(13)
7.8
X%       = OPENIN(filename$)  :REM Open the template file
7.8
PTR# X%  = 16          :REM Skip header info
7.8
REPEAT
7.8
  SYS “OS_GBPB”,4,X%,buff%,4
7.8
  file_offset% = !buff%: REM File offset for this entry
7.8
  IF file_offset% > 0 THEN
7.8
    nr_templates%   += 1
7.8
    indirected_size% = 0
7.8
    SYS “OS_GBPB”,4,X%,buff%,4
7.8
    data_size%  = !buff%   :REM Size of data for this entry
7.8
    SYS “OS_GBPB”,4,X%,buff%,4 :REM Read entry type
7.8
    entry_type% = !buff%    :REM Entry type (1 = window)
7.8
    SYS “OS_GBPB”,4,X%,buff%,12  :REM Read window identifier string
7.8
    old_ptr% = PTR# X%   :REM Save current pointer position
7.8
    PTR# X%  = file_offset% + 56 :REM Move pointer to title flags word
7.8
    SYS “OS_GBPB”,4,X%,buff%,4   :REM Read title bar flag word
7.8
    flags% = !buff%
7.8
    PTR# X% = file_offset% + 72  :REM Move pointer to start of title bar
data
7.8
    SYS “OS_GBPB”,4,X%,buff%,12  :REM Read 3 words of title bar data
7.8
    indirected_size%+=FNIconIndirSize(file_ offset%,flags%,buff%)
7.8
    PTR# X% = file_offset% + 84 :REM Move pointer to icon count word
7.8
    SYS “OS_GBPB”,4,X%,buff%,4   :REM Read number of icons
7.8
    nr_icons% = !buff%
7.8
    IF nr_icons% > 0 THEN
7.8
      FOR j% = 0 TO nr_icons% - 1
7.8
        PTR# X% = file_offset% + 88 + (j% * 32) + 16
7.8
        SYS “OS_GBPB”,4,X%,buff%,4 :REM Read icon flag word
7.8
        flags% = !buff%
7.8
        PTR# X% = file_offset% + 88 + (j% * 32) + 20
7.8
        SYS “OS_GBPB”,4,X%,buff%,12  :REM Read 3 words of icon data
7.8
         indirected_size% += FNIconIndirSize (file_offset%,flags%,buff%)
7.8
      NEXT j%
7.8
    ENDIF
7.8
    PTR# X% = old_ptr%
7.8
    total_indirsize% += indirected_size%
7.8
    IF data_size% > largest_def% THEN
7.8
      largest_def% = data_size%
7.8
    ENDIF
7.8
  ENDIF
7.8
UNTIL file_offset% = 0
7.8
CLOSE# X%       :REM Close the template file
7.8
PROC_heap_release(buff%) :REM Release workspace buffer
7.8
buff_size% = largest_def% + total_indirsize%
7.8
ENDPROC
7.8
DEF FNIconIndirSize(file_offset%,flags%,data%)
7.8
LOCAL size%,valid_offset%,ctr%,char%
7.8
IF (flags% AND &800100) = &100 THEN
7.8
  size% = data%!8
7.8
  IF (flags% AND 1) AND (data%!4 <> -1) THEN
7.8
    valid_offset% = data%!4
7.8
    PTR# X% = file_offset% + valid_offset%
7.8
    ctr% = 0
7.8
    REPEAT
7.8
      char% = BGET# X%
7.8
      ctr% += 1
7.8
    UNTIL char% < 32
7.8
    size% = size% + ctr%
7.8
  ENDIF
7.8
ELSE
7.8
  size% = 0
7.8
ENDIF
7.8
= size%
7.8
DEF FN_heap_get(size%)
7.8
LOCAL ptr%,heap%,flags%
7.8
REM Returns pointer to new memory block unless claim fails
7.8
REM in which case -1 is returned
7.8
REM First find start address of RMA
7.8
SYS “OS_ReadDynamicArea”,1 TO heap%
7.8
REM Now claim memory, trapping errors by using X form of SWI
7.8
SYS “XOS_Module”,6,,,size% TO ,,ptr%;flags%
7.8
REM If error occured return -1, else return address of allocated
7.8
REM block
7.8
IF (flags% AND 1) THEN ptr% = -1
7.8
= ptr%
7.8
DEF PROC_heap_release(RETURN ptr%)
7.8
LOCAL maxfree%,nrpages%,flags%
7.8
REM Returns  0 if block released OK
7.8
REM Returns -1 if operation failed (i.e. block doesn’t exist)
7.8
SYS “XOS_Module”,7,,ptr% TO ;flags%:REM Free the block
7.8
IF (flags% AND 1) = 0 THEN
7.8
  REM Block was released successfully
7.8
  ptr% = 0
7.8
ELSE
7.8
  REM Error occured trying to free the
7.8
  REM block, return -1 to signal to the
7.8
  REM program that something went wrong
7.8
  REM (normally the program would ignore
7.8
  REM this anyway)
7.8
  ptr% = -1
7.8
ENDIF
7.8
ENDPROC
7.8
However, RISC OS 3 has a facility to find out much more easily the
buffer sizes required. It is advisable to use the official method
whenever RISC OS 3 is detected as it is much faster − try the routines
yourself and you will see. A practical program will of course need to
include both routines to ensure compatibility with RISC OS 2.
7.8
TIME = 0
7.8
PROCScanTemplateFile(“Templates”,buff_ size%,nr_templates%)
7.8
PRINT “Buffer size required = ” + STR$buff_size% + “ (&” +
7.8
STR$~buff_size% + “)”
7.8
PRINT “Number of templates  = ” + STR$nr_templates%
7.8
PRINT “Time : ”+STR$(TIME/100)+“ secs”
7.8
END
7.8
DEF PROCScanTemplateFile(filename$,RETURN buff_size%,RETURN
nr_templates%)
7.8
LOCAL pos%,total_indirsize%,largest_def%, file_offset%
7.8
LOCAL buff%
7.8
LOCAL ctr%,char%,old_ptr%,nr_icons%,j%, flags%
7.8
REM Returns the size of the buffer needed by “Wimp_LoadTemplate”
7.8
REM and the number of templates in the file
7.8
pos% = 0:nr_templates% = 0
7.8
total_indirsize% = 0:largest_def% = 0
7.8
buff% = FN_heap_get(13)
7.8
SYS “Wimp_OpenTemplate”,,filename$
7.8
REPEAT
7.8
  $buff% = “*”
7.8
  REM the following only works on RISC OS 3
7.8
  SYS “Wimp_LoadTemplate”,,-1,,,,buff%,pos% TO
,buff_size%,indirsize%,,,,pos%
7.8
  IF pos% <> 0 THEN
7.8
    IF buff_size% > largest_def% THEN largest_def% = buff_size%
7.8
    total_indirsize% += indirsize%
7.8
    nr_templates% += 1
7.8
  ENDIF
7.8
UNTIL pos% = 0
7.8
SYS “Wimp_CloseTemplate”
7.8
buff_size% = largest_def% + total_indirsize%
7.8
PROC_heap_release(buff%)
7.8
ENDPROC
7.8
DEF FN_heap_get(size%)
7.8
LOCAL ptr%,heap%,flags%
7.8
REM Returns pointer to new memory block unless claim fails
7.8
REM in which case -1 is returned
7.8
REM First find start address of RMA
7.8
SYS “OS_ReadDynamicArea”,1 TO heap%
7.8
REM Now claim memory, trapping errors by using X form of SWI
7.8
SYS “XOS_Module”,6,,,size% TO ,,ptr%;flags%
7.8
REM If error occured return -1, else return address of allocated
7.8
REM block
7.8
IF (flags% AND 1) THEN ptr% = -1
7.8
= ptr%
7.8
DEF PROC_heap_release(RETURN ptr%)
7.8
LOCAL maxfree%,nrpages%,flags%
7.8
REM Returns  0 if block released OK
7.8
REM Returns -1 if operation failed (i.e. block doesn’t exist)
7.8
SYS “XOS_Module”,7,,ptr% TO ;flags%:REM Free the block
7.8
IF (flags% AND 1) = 0 THEN
7.8
  REM Block was released successfully
7.8
  ptr% = 0
7.8
ELSE
7.8
  REM Error occured trying to free the
7.8
  REM block, return -1 to signal to the
7.8
  REM program that something went wrong
7.8
  REM (normally the program would ignore
7.8
  REM this anyway)
7.8
  ptr% = -1
7.8
ENDIF
7.8
ENDPROC
7.8
RISC OS 3 detection
7.8
It is sometimes useful to know which version of RISC OS your program is
running under, either to take advantage of the new features or,
alternatively, to abort the program if if won’t run at all under RISC OS
2. Here is a function to find out if RISC OS 3 is installed.
7.8
It relies on the fact that the Utility Module has the same version
number as RISC OS (perhaps a dangerous assumption − does anyone have a
better routine?). As usual, some method of claiming and releasing a
block of workspace is also assumed.
7.8
DEF FNRO3_Present
7.8
LOCAL blk%,len%,result$
7.8
REM Returns TRUE if RISC OS 3 is present, otherwise FALSE
7.8
blk% = FN_get_heap(256)     :REM Claim some workspace
7.8
OSCLI(“Set RO3$Check Y”)    :REM Set a system variable to “Y”
7.8
REM The next line sets the system variable
7.8
REM to “N” if RISC OS 3 or better is
7.8
REM not present.
7.8
OSCLI(“RMEnsure UtilityModule 3.00 Set RO3$Check N”)
7.8
REM Now we check the value of the system
7.8
REM variable by reading it into a buffer
7.8
SYS “OS_ReadVarVal”,“RO3$Check”,blk%,256,0,0 TO ,,len%
7.8
REM Add string terminator so that BASIC can read it
7.8
blk%?len% = 13
7.8
REM Unset the system variable to tidy things up
7.8
OSCLI(“Unset RO3$Check”)
7.8
result$ = $blk%
7.8
PROC_heap_release(blk%)
7.8
IF result$ = “N” THEN = FALSE ELSE = TRUE
7.8
(All the programs plus a few other useful bits and pieces are on the
Archive monthly disc.)  A
7.8
Pocket Book Column
7.8
Audrey Laski
7.8
There has been a lively response to the opening of a Pocket Book column;
I have tried by judicious filleting to use something of nearly all the
contributions that have come in, and look forward to the next batch.
7.8
Dunce’s corner
7.8
This is where I regularly expose my own idiocies and failures to read
the manual properly, for the comfort of my peers. This month, it’s
questions of memory. I had been getting rather anxious about the way the
available memory seemed to be shrinking, and used TAB to examine details
of the individual files. The Card file where I keep a record of time-
shifted television programmes waiting to be viewed on videotapes, seemed
to have become enormous, though we haven’t many tapes. When John pointed
me back to the manual, I discovered that I had been failing to compress
after my frequent updatings of these records, so that ghost entries were
more than doubling the amount of memory this file occupied. No sooner
had I saved space by compressing all my Card files, than I got a letter
from John Woodthorpe, of Rugby, pointing out that by keeping the Remote
Link permanently configured, as I had admitted in the last column, I was
both tying up memory and using battery life. That rescued another 20Kb.
Anyone worried about space should perhaps check that there are no
follies like mine cluttering it up − if you find any other kinds, please
let me know.
7.8
More on A-Link/Psion compatibility
7.8
John Woodthorpe’s letter was packed with good things and I will cite it
again and again. He confirms that “the A-Link and PocketFS work well
with both the Series 3 and 3a, although there are occasional hangups,
especially in converting large word processor files to RTF”. He hopes an
upgrade to PocketFS2 will cure this problem but, like the rest of us, he
is still waiting for Acorn Direct to produce this.
7.8
He also strongly recommends a series of programs produced as PD and
Shareware for the Series 3 and 3a, most of which will run on the Pocket
Book. Their provider, a group called 3-Lib, run by Steve Lichfield,
supplies them at present on 1.44Mb or 720Kb PC format floppies which
means, of course, that they need to be rejigged by the PC Emulator or
SparkFS. To get the whole set, you need to send three 1.44 or eight 720
floppies plus £7 to 3-Lib, 8 Grove Farm, Mytchett, Surrey, GU16 6AQ − or
simply an SAE will get you their catalogue. I’m certainly going to try
them, and hope they may soon enable a direct Archive version in a PD
Library. (STOP PRESS! Just received the discs. Our !Spark doesn’t seem
to want to unzip all of them, so better wait till next column for
further news.)
7.8
Bugs and bothers
7.8
Both John Woodthorpe and Robert Newmark of Cleadon, Sunderland suggest,
for Paul’s problem of the “backup battery low” complaint, removing the
backup battery, without touching it with fingers, and gently cleaning it
and the contacts. The latter, John Woodthorpe says, with a cotton bud
moistened with alcohol. This seems to have solved the problem for them,
but I understand that it hasn’t worked for Paul.
7.8
(Lots of people have made similar suggestions and all seem to agree that
it’s a contact problem and a fairly common one at that, but I haven’t
solved mine yet. John Woodgate, Rayleigh, Essex says, “I believe the
problem with the battery low warnings is that the detection circuitry is
set incorrectly. You should send it to be repaired but be careful to
point out that you have put in a brand new battery and still get the
same problems − or they may just replace the battery and send it back!”
Ed.)
7.8
Robert Newmark has had A-Link problems that I recognise. While working
on batteries, he got the “Remote device disconnected” message when, as
far as he was concerned, it was connected and switched on. He thinks it
may have been caused by marginally low batteries. I used to get it
because I had the automatic switch-off occurring very frequently and
hadn’t thought of cancelling it while I worked with the A310. Any other
thoughts?
7.8
He has also had a difficulty with trying to transfer an open file, which
led to an error message. More seriously, trying to transfer that file
thereafter always produced an endless hour-glass, only cancelled by
switching off his A3000. I had a similar experience when first using the
A-Link, and have never dared try to transfer an open file since, so that
I don’t know whether or not this behaviour has been treated as a bug and
eliminated in the A-Link upgrade. Advice would be welcome − meanwhile I
can only say, “Don’t do it, babe! i.e. always close files before
transferring them”.
7.8
Spell dictionaries
7.8
Peter Young of Cheltenham points out that, contrary to what is stated in
the manual, a document dictionary is created at the moment you start to
check a document with Spell, and stays around in the D$S directory, even
if you put no words into it. It’s therefore worth keeping an eye on this
directory and weeding out useless dictionaries. However, he adds that a
dictionary containing technical terms − “writing your Hints and Tips for
Archive”, for example − should be saved when the document is deleted so
that, “when you write your next Hint and Tip, you can give the document
the same name, and the dictionary will be used again, saving you a bit
of time.” He also notes that the new version of Spell, which comes on
the Schedule SSD, has an Alternates (actually called “Options”) menu
slightly different from that illustrated in the manual and asks, “Is
this a quirk of this version of Spell?”
7.8
Endnote
7.8
I was delighted to get a letter from Ian Horsey, of Llangefni, Gwynedd,
who is using his Pocket Book as an invaluable adjunct to his GCSE
studies − evidence that it is doing the educational job it was primarily
built for, as well as supporting superannuated teachers like me. He
shares the wish for Password Protection; “computer illiterate friends”
can cause disastrous losses.  A
7.8
(Pocket Book Magazine? I’m toying with the idea of starting a Pocket
Book magazine. I think we would have to call it a Newsletter at first as
I don’t think we could produce 80 pages a month just about the Pocket
Book. If there were anyone who would like to run such a newsletter
themselves, I would support them by giving as much information as I
could get from my contacts at Acorn. If there is no-one who would like
to do it as a hobby, we could do it here at Norwich Computer Services
but would have to charge a subscription of, say, £10 a year to make it
worthwhile financially.
7.8
Please let me or Audrey know what you think of the idea. Thanks. Ed.)
7.8
Sea, Trade & Empire − A Key Datafile
7.8
Paul Cross
7.8
Key is a database that has been with us some time. Cast your minds back
to the good old days of the 32Kb BBC Micro when, at that time, the only
database available was Key. Many struggled with the complexity of
setting up their own databases and managed to enter ten or so records.
Interrogation, was the next task, meaningless graphs and the comment, ‘I
could work that out for myself’ were seen and heard!
7.8
Rethink
7.8
Since that time, many databases have become available that are friendly
to use and ideally suited to the requirement of the National Curriculum
to set up your own database. Meaningful interrogation, on the other
hand, requires a large database with numerical and textual content.
Enter Key datafiles.  Under review here is the one entitled, ‘Sea, Trade
& Empire’. It is aimed mainly at Key Stage 3 History: Expansion, Trade
and Industry.
7.8
What do you get for your money?
7.8
It is available for the Acorn range of computers at £22 +VAT and
includes one disc containing a number of datafiles, drawfiles and a map,
plus a detailed booklet containing study sheets for use with students.
This cost is inclusive of site licence, which also allows you to print
out maps and illustrations, for use within the purchasing establishment,
as well as using the data and maps in multimedia presentations, so long
as this is not for financial gain.
7.8
The technical bit
7.8
The datafiles are:- Ships named Lion, Shaw Savill Ships, Combined Crews
1874 − 1900, and Nineteenth Century Ports. The latter contains
information on the latitude and longitude of the ports which can be used
with Key Plus Maps to plot their positions at any scale. Some of the
files can also be used with Keynote.
7.8
Conclusion
7.8
If you teach Geography, History or IT subjects at Key Stage 3, you will
find the vast amounts of data useful for research and the package of
good value.
7.8
Anglia Television suggest it could be used with ‘Ships and Seafarers’ at
Key Stage 2, but, as a primary school teacher myself, I would have
little use for it and would rather spend my money on datafiles directly
related to my areas of the curriculum. An example would be Viking World,
also from Anglia Television, at the same price, i.e. £22 +VAT.  A
7.8
Electronic CAD on an Archimedes − 5
7.8
Richard Torrens
7.8
It must be obvious from March’s Archive that the electronics software
business is currently very active and there have been several recent
developments which I would like to mention briefly before I go on to
discuss another hot chestnut − that of Acorn’s recommended style for
RISC OS applications − during the writing of this series I have formed
some of my own opinions. These may be useful to programmers generally,
not simply to those writing electronics programs − and if we, the users,
can tell the programmers what we want, then I feel we should.
7.8
I have also had an official ‘warning’ about getting too technical.
Although I am prepared to do that, it is best kept to discs and private
correspondence so if you wish to contact me, see the end of this
article.
7.8
Fastrax
7.8
Just as I was sending off part 4 to Paul, an envelope arrived through my
door containing a pre-release version of Fastrax from Techsoft. I
started playing with the software and was very impressed. This is a very
capable little PCB designer, packed with features. There were no
instructions − but operation was, for the most part, pretty obvious.
7.8
So I rang Techsoft and had a long chat with Richard Amy, the author. The
program is aimed at schools rather than high-powered users. Richard used
to work for Linear Graphics so knew LinTrack well: several ideas have
been transplanted (perhaps this was why I was initially so impressed).
7.8
So I decided to port a board that I was designing across from Vector:
problem 1, Fastrax is not intended for drawfile import (not surprising
as no software author could be expected to anticipate any consistent
usage of Draw). However, Fastrax import drawfiles and can make some
sensible use of them: it the draw object is red (the colour of Fastrax’s
copper layer) the object ends up on the copper layer. Fastrax also has a
‘Draw’ layer where a drawing of the component can be placed. This is not
the same as the silk screen layer − Techsoft supply a file of resistors
that are Draw objects and are colour-coded so you can see a picture of
how the board will end up. Very nice for schools, but for an industrial
user it is interesting rather than useful.
7.8
Of course, any program intended for power use can only become a powerful
program by being used to debug it and polish the user interface. This is
a pre-release version, so I have been able to give Techsoft some
feedback, and Richard Amy he has been altering the program as a result.
7.8
Here I come to another point: a user interface which is easy to pick up
is also almost certain to be tedious for power use. A beginner wants
mouse interface but the experienced user works far quicker through the
keyboard. Fastrax is an educational program and does not yet have a good
power user interface, but Techsoft are working on this. The problem is
that a power user interface can really only evolve through a lot of use
over a length of time and it can take a lot of programming time for
relatively little commercial return. As Techsoft see it, the Archimedes
PCB CAD market is not large enough to justify this investment of time.
Also, Techsoft are essentially in the education market. Their
programming time is expensive, so has to be productive.
7.8
There is a distinct difference here between OakPCB and Fastrax on the
one hand and Vector and RiscCAD on the other. Jonathan Marten (Vector)
and David Buck (RiscCAD) both have full time jobs: they program for fun
so their programming time does not have to be measured in £ per hour but
in satisfaction per hour. Vector is, by any meaningful measure, a power
program with a double interface: WIMP for the beginner and keyboard for
the power user. The problem is that Vector is not aimed at PCBs, so has
none of the productivity aids one could hope for. So my current dilemma
is which is better for me, Vector or Fastrax? Time will doubtless tell −
but I cannot afford time, I have too much work to do on the design
front. As Fastrax is still growing it may well end up the winner but for
the moment Vector’s powerful user interface wins, if only by a whisker.
7.8
Between OakPCB and Fastrax I think there is no decision to be made:
Fastrax wins hands down. Oak has connectivity, so does Fastrax, but Oak
cannot edit multiple objects in the same way as Fastrax. In Oak you can
move an IC and all the tracks move with it but in FT you can pick up an
IC together with a whole group of surrounding bits and pieces and move
them all as one, with interconnecting tracks stretching as necessary. If
you choose the correct bits to move, things are a lot easier. This is
possible with OakPCB in theory − but try it on a dense board and you
will see what I mean.
7.8
Although my version is pre-release, FT also seems quite robust. I found
very few actual bugs to report back: most of my suggestions were to do
with the power user interface. Fastrax is priced at £75, the same price
as Oak now is. Fastrax also can put pads on the copper side, component
side or both, just as you wish. Oak cannot. Pads are on both sides
whether you like it or not. Oak can do a 4 layer board which Fastrax
cannot, but I cannot see anyone in education using OakPCB for a 4 layer
board − or do schools have facilities to produce 4 layer prototypes?
Fastrax also has round, oval and square pads, with or without centre
hole. Oak has round or square with a centre hole as well as a selection
of surface mount pads. Oak is much more Draw-like than FT whereas FT has
a more individual look which I find far better in practice. OakPCB also
tends (like Draw) to bog down as the drawing/PCB grows. There was little
sign of this with Fastrax which seems a lot easier to use.
7.8
Much of the problem in the area of PCB software area, as with other
areas of the Archimedes software market, is that there are considered to
be insufficient demand to justify commercial programming time for
sophisticated packages and until the sophisticated packages are
available there is nothing to attract buyers. However, both Vector and
Fastrax could be developed in this direction − so if this is what you
want, let me know so I can give them feedback.
7.8
CADMust
7.8
Which brings me neatly on to CADMust. This is fast overtaking the rest
of the field and I think I owe USArc an apology because my last mention
of it was far too negative. I don’t wish to discourage USArc − I need a
program such as CADMust, but how do you encourage authors to move their
program in the direction you think it should go? However, CADMust
version 1.2 is now just about ready and it seems much improved over
earlier versions so that, for probably 99% of users, it seems to be just
about everything they could desire. CADMust is expensive − but there are
literally many man-years of thought and programming in the program and
it is not simply a program for drawing PCBs but a complete design system
with advanced features such as schematic capture, back annotation,
automatic routing etc etc. I have not yet fully got to grips with the
program, so I will not go into much more detail, but if you are into
maximum automation of your PCB design, this would appear to be the
market leader and it has now come of age. I shall return to it later.
7.8
CADMust is available in the UK through Castle Technology, 0728-621222.
7.8
RiscCAD/RiscPCB
7.8
Then there is RiscPCB (for lack of another name) which David Buck is
writing, based on RiscCAD. He has already swapped ‘wish lists’ with me,
so is starting to think it through. What facilities do you want? You
don’t often get a chance to influence the programmer, but you have
several here.
7.8
Suggestions − Vector
7.8
I have had a suggestion (which has been passed on) that Vector should
include a method of entering a line, circle, box or whatever from the
keyboard: you enter the length, in millimetres or whatever, and Vector
creates the line which you then move into place. Alternatively, maybe
you could enter a start point then enter the length. This way, the start
point would have to remain where you put it and, as you have just
entered the length, the ‘free’ end would be constrained to a circular
path until you dumped it when it would become an ordinary object.
7.8
In 1992, Risc User published a program ‘Draw Tools’ which enables you to
enter a line, box, arc etc from the keyboard and drag it to a drawfile.
The program was available on Risc User Special Disc 5.
7.8
Whilst I am on the subject of reader feedback, I had about ten requests
for discs in response to the first in the series about using DrawPlus
for circuit diagrams. This would seem to reveal quite an interest in the
subject.
7.8
Acorn Style Guide
7.8
This is currently a hot potato, so here is my halfpennyworth... It is
indeed very important that we have a consistent user interface. But we
must not be consistent to the point of fossilization: too much
‘consistency’ and evolution stops. Also, if Acorn’s style is too rigidly
applied, there is a danger that original programming will be inhibited.
Those who indulge in excessive ‘RISC-OS’ification risk ossification
(sorry − I couldn’t resist that!). We Acorn users are not into excessive
standardization − or we would still be using MS-DOS machines, heaven
forfend. Rather, programmers must use the ‘Style guide’ as a guide to
the minimum acceptable standard − don’t be afraid to change it, but if
you do, make sure that the new method is a considerable improvement.
7.8
This tirade comes about because, during my investigations into PCB
design software two things have become all too apparent. Firstly, every
programmer seems to think that !Draw is intended for CAD and secondly
that !Draw does not work for PCBs or for circuit diagrams. I refer
particularly for the problems with Draw’s bounding boxes and the
difficulty of making a multiple selection of Draw objects (I covered
this in part 1, on drawing circuit diagrams). Every PCB design package
that I have so far examined, uses Bounding boxes and every package
without exception suffers as a consequence. However, there is an
alternative. Moreover, this alternative should not conflict with
existing user interfaces as it is an additional method which seems (to
me) to fit quite naturally into the existing style, extending it, not
replacing it.
7.8
Proposal
7.8
In addition to Select mode and Edit mode, I propose a new mode, let us
call it Multi-edit mode. On entering this mode, you can point to any
object and click the mouse. However, the routine doesn’t search for
objects but searches for points within a radius of the pointer. The
search radius is related to the scale of the drawing, so the search
radius will probably be a constant distance on the screen. If the point
belongs to a grouped object, the whole object changes colour or flashes
or announces itself in some such manner. If the point is a node in an
ungrouped object, it (the node) flashes in the same way. Pressing
<select> will ‘accept’ the node (or complete group) whilst pressing
<adjust> will ‘reject’ the item. An accepted node is considered to be
picked and will be operated upon when ‘picking’ has finished. The
routine then searches through for another point within the search radius
and flashes this for selection/rejection and so on until all the data
has been searched (when it is probably best to re-search the same data
again since, if the user is still searching, then he hasn’t picked up
something he wants). The pointer may be moved about (when no point is
flashing) so any number of points/objects may be picked.
7.8
The ‘picking’ routine is ended very easily by pressing <menu>. The user
now has a choice of what to do with the selection, which may be Delete,
Copy, Move, or whatever is appropriate to the program. For PCB work,
this includes ‘Pull’ which enables all picked objects and points to be
moved. If only one end of a track is picked, this segment stretches
rubber-band style. In this way, ends of tracks will be picked up with
components for moving whilst still retaining connectivity. For other
drawing work, the user can unambiguously make his selection with a
minimum of confusion. Apart from the search time, the routine works as
well with a complex drawing as it does with a simple one − which cannot
be said of Draw style selecting.
7.8
In addition to doing a search within a radius of the pointer, the user
should also have the option of selecting a rectangular area. The area
can be set by well-established wimp methods of dragging a box. In ‘area
select’ mode, the user has a choice of Select/Reject all points within
the area one at a time or he can select all objects which lie totally
within the area or he can select objects which cross the area. Since
‘area select’ mode is part of the picking routine, it can be combined
with point picking so the user can easily select the exact combination
of points/objects that he requires.
7.8
Feedback
7.8
If you have any comments/suggestions/criticisms/requests you can contact
me at: 4QD, 30 Reach Road, Burwell, Cambridgeshire, CB5 0AH. Phone or
fax on 0638-741930 at any reasonable time (I work from home).  A
7.8
Small Ads
7.8
(Small ads for Archimedes and related products are free for subscribers
but we reserve the right to publish all, part or none of the material
you send, as we think fit. i.e. some people don’t know what ‘small’
means and there are certain things, as you can imagine, that we would
not be prepared to advertise as a matter of principle. Sending small ads
(especially long ones!) on disc is helpful but not essential. Ed)
7.8
•  A3000, RISC OS 3.1, 4MB (no monitor), discs and manuals £350.
PipeDream3 £30. PipeDream4 £80. Easiwriter (2.07) £60. Superior Golf
£10. Or all for £500. Phone [phone].
7.8
•  A3010 Family Solution, upgraded to 2Mb RAM, 3 months old, mint cond.
£295 o.n.o. Phone [phone] or 412515 Ext 4034.
7.8
•  A4 Model II, 4Mb, 60Mb HD, PC Emulator, boxed, good cond. £1149
o.n.o. A3000 Learning curve, 2Mb RAM, boxed, never used + Philips
monitor only £249 o.n.o. A310 1Mb RAM, Acorn 2-slot backplane £149
o.n.o. Phone [phone].
7.8
•  A4 Notebook, 4Mb 60M HD + software inc. Pipedream 4 and Impression
II, £1350. Eizo 9060S multiscan monitor £295. Canon BJ200 bubble jet
printer £199. Part exchange for BBC Master + cash. Phone [phone]
after 5pm.
7.8
•  A4 Portable (4Mb RAM, 60Mb drive), 7 months old, carry-case, mains
adapter, spare battery and software inc. Artworks, Impression II, Visual
Backup, RemoteFS, PC Emulator v1.81, MS-DOS 5, and Compression. Mint
condition, warranty, boxed, £995 o.n.o. or may exchange for mint A5000.
Phone [phone] or 412515 Ext 4034.
7.8
•  A4000 £499. 4Mb RAM, 40Mb disc, 16 months old, ex cond. Carriage can
be arranged. Phone Tracey or Paul on Ipswich 0473 728943.
7.8
•  A410/1 4Mb memory, Eizo monitor, some S/W, lots of books, back issues
of Archive with discs. £650. Phone [phone].
7.8
•  Acorn PocketBook, 9 months old, mains adapter, A-Link, Schedule,
Printer interface, ex cond, boxed, £100 o.n.o. Phone [phone] or
412515 Ext 4034.
7.8
•  Any offers for RISC OS 2 user guide/manuals and A3000 monitor stand
plinths which fit on top of computers. Contact Charlie Alford 0533-
667566 or 0533-660123.
7.8
•  Brother 1509 136-column dot matrix printer (takes A3 landscape
fashion), manual, £70. Akhter twin 5¼“ disc drive 40/80 track, boxed,
manual, £40. Sliding tray storage box for 5¼” discs £10. Phone 0276-
22031.
7.8
•  CC Turbo Driver HP Deskjet £30, Ace ProDriver (Deskjet/Paintjet) £15,
DBedit £15, DeskEdit 3 £15, Compression £19, KeyStroke £12, FontDir £19,
Vigil £10, ABC v2 £18, Euclid £19, Splice £13, Mogul £10, Aldebaran £15,
Elite £15, Cataclysm £10, Pandora’s Box £10, Drop ship £8, Text Aid £6,
GraphBox £19, DrawAid £7, Interdictor 2 £10. Phone [phone].
7.8
•  Cumana 600 CD-ROM drive. Brand new & unused. Guaranteed. £390. Phone
0245-422237.
7.8
•  Easiword £20, Grievous Bodily ’Arm £10, Blowpipe £10, Interdictor II
£12, Enter the Realm £10, SWIV £7.95, Chocks Away £5, Blitz £10, Saloon
Cars Deluxe £15, Cataclysm £10, Squirrel v1.21 Manual £4, Quickshot
Maverick 1M Joystick £10, Quickshot Python 3 Joystick £5. All sensible
offers considered. All prices exclusive of P&P. Contact: Jon Aylwin,
“Oak Villa”, 4 St. Margarets Close, Hollingarth Way, Hemyock,
Cullompton, Devon, EX15 3XJ.
7.8
•  Juki 6100 daisywheel printer £10, buyer collects (Herts). Phone 0462-
682961.
7.8
•  OPL and User manual for the Series 3, (useful if you have the Psion
emulator) £7 the pair. Documentation copy of C development kit for the
Series 3 (also applicable to the Pocket Book) £30. (Anyone who knows C
and wants more from OPL would find these VERY useful.) Also supplied are
PC disks containing the Psion C library routines for a TopSpeed
compiler. Both in good condition & cover other aspects of the machine.
Phone Mark after 6pm on 0905-754277.
7.8
•  PipeDream 4 £80, Telephone K Tompkins 0276-28932.
7.8
•  Psion 3 (256k), £110. Star LC24-10 Printer £90. Phillips 8833
Monitor, £100. Acorn DTP, 1st Word Plus and Logistix, £25 for all three.
Tel [phone].
7.8
•  Wanted A4 Computer in good working condition. Contact A Campbell,
0626-853774.
7.8
•  Wanted Drafting or CAD Package. PDT for preference. Kenneth Hynes
071-609-9969.
7.8
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.
7.8
We sold all our charity items at the Open Day and raised over £300 for
the Quidenham Children’s Hospice. Please send us some more items to sell
for charity. Thanks.  A
7.8
Keyboard Trainer
7.8
Phillip Coffey
7.8
Are you aged between 5 and 105? Would you like to learn to play any type
of music from simple folk tunes such as ‘Michael Row the Boat’ to
Mozart’s ‘Piano Sonata in A major’ with a bit of blues and fusion thrown
in for good measure? Then Keyboard Trainer from Minerva Software could
be for you.
7.8
What Keyboard Trainer does
7.8
Keyboard Trainer is a way of using an Archimedes RISC OS computer to
learn to play a keyboard instrument. There are sixty-two lessons in
carefully graded steps starting with the assumption that the student has
no knowledge of music notation or keyboard instruments whatsoever. The
lessons are mainly tutorial, providing information about matters such as
the arrangement of notes on the keyboard, musical notation on the stave,
hand position, note duration and rhythm. These are interspersed with
easy-to-play music, enabling the student to practise newly acquired
knowledge and skills. Nine games introduce an element of fun to what
some might consider a serious or tedious subject.
7.8
Manual
7.8
The software is supplied on an 800Kb floppy disc and comes with a 44
page A5-size manual. The latter is nicely produced, well laid out and is
straight-forward to use. However, once the program is up and running
there is little need to consult the manual.
7.8
Midi interface
7.8
Keyboard Trainer requires the Archimedes computer to be attached to a
Midi keyboard via an Acorn compatible Midi interface. Users with an EMR
Midi interface will need to use an additional piece of software
available from EMR, the HCCS interface (Acorn SWI Emulator) software.
7.8
Which keyboard?
7.8
There are many different makes of keyboard and a bewildering array of
models by each manufacturer, so it is important that the software is
configured correctly for the particular keyboard in use. Twenty-four of
the most popular keyboards by Casio, Roland and Yamaha are recognised
and have configuration files provided. If you are unfortunate enough to
own a keyboard that is not included on their list, Minerva may be able
to help. (A HelpLine exists for registered users after 3.30p.m.)
Alternatively, if you are familiar with the Midi channels on your
keyboard, you may be able to make your own configuration file. This is
done by loading an existing configuration into !Edit and changing the
channels and saving the file under a new file name. The manual explains
how to do this. Once configuration is sorted out, this is saved and
remembered by the program.
7.8
Starting simple
7.8
The program is loaded in the usual way and installed on the iconbar. An
introductory menu lists the lessons. Different icons indicate the three
types of lesson: tutorials, games or tunes. It is easy to select the
required lesson. The first lesson assumes absolutely no prior knowledge
of piano keyboards and explains why a keyboard has black and white
notes.
7.8
Musical space ships
7.8
This leads straight on to the first game where certain keys must be
pressed to get your space ship back to base before being blasted by
rockets from an alien space ship. I managed this whilst the keys were in
the first finger position, but then there seemed to be no keyboard logic
to the selection of keys to press. Consequently, I either pressed too
many wrong notes or got blasted by the alien. I never succeeded in this
lesson.
7.8
After completing a lesson, the next lesson in the sequence is
automatically selected which is a good idea. Lessons can be selected in
any order by using the mouse.
7.8
Easy play music
7.8
Lesson four and five introduce the first five notes of the treble clef
and the five finger position. In practice, if too many wrong notes are
played, the lesson stops with an invitation to try again. The first tune
is a simple eight bar piece using the first five notes in first finger
position. As with all the tunes, it is possible to listen first, alter
the tempo (slowing it right down if necessary), record your own efforts
and replay the piece with your own contribution included with the in-
built accompaniment. Wrong notes are indicated.
7.8
The lessons and exercises dealing with note duration (crotchets and
quavers) were good, although on some of the scored practices, it was
possible to score highly even when making fundamental mistakes. For
example, the exercise on tied notes, it was possible to score 2002 by
playing four crotchets instead of one crotchet, a quaver followed by a
quaver tied to a minim. Some other scored practices gave no marks for
totally wrong entries.
7.8
The Note Invaders game was fun.
7.8
Automatic accompaniments
7.8
Most home keyboards have automatic accompaniments where the student
plays chords with the left hand and the keyboard plays back an amazing
accompaniment with rhythm, bass and drums. Chords are introduced in the
program, but not enough practice is provided. At no time is the student
able to play a piece of music with left and right hand together or to
play chords with the left hand whilst the computer plays the tune.
7.8
Chord patterns are introduced with twelve-bar blues, but again there is
no opportunity for the student to practise playing this. Other chord
patterns such as C − Am − F − G7 are not mentioned.
7.8
There is a minor chord tutorial, but again there is no practice.
7.8
Finale
7.8
The final tunes of Mozart’s ‘Piano Sonata in A major’ and Dvorak’s ‘New
World Symphony’ (29 bars) were very nice and anyone starting as a
complete novice from the beginning could achieve a sense of satisfaction
at playing these pieces and completing the course.
7.8
Conclusion
7.8
Keyboard Trainer is a very simple, easy-to-use computer program that
would help a complete novice learn his/her way around a keyboard and
learn the very basics of musical notation and rhythm. Simple tunes using
the right hand could also be played with satisfaction with the
accompaniment provided by the program. However, the use of left-hand
chords for automatic accompaniments is fundamental to playing a keyboard
and this area is not at all well covered. There is some space left on
the program disc and it may be useful to include some of the above
mentioned omissions in future versions.
7.8
Keyboard Trainer is a Keyboard Tutor authored by Simon Foxall and Tim
Smith and published by Minerva Software. It costs £69.95 +VAT from
Minerva or £87 through Archive.
7.8
Keyboard Trainer Version 1.01 was reviewed on an A440 with RISC OS 3.1
using an EMR Midi 4 interface and a Roland E20 keyboard.  A
7.8
PD Column
7.8
David Holden
7.8
I have received a few letters in the last couple of months complaining
that when I mention PD or Shareware programs, I don’t say from where
they can be obtained. This is not an oversight. Regular readers will be
aware that I run APDL (the Archimedes Public Domain Library), and so it
goes without saying that if I recommend a program, it can be found in
the APDL catalogue. Many programs also appear on Archive Careware or
Shareware discs. As I try to avoid using this column to promote APDL, I
don’t belabour you with this.
7.8
Other libraries
7.8
The question which normally accompanies this is, which libraries I would
recommend. This is also something that I am reluctant to do. One problem
is that almost all the various Archimedes libraries have their own
‘flavour’, unlike PC equivalents which are all pretty much the same.
This ‘sameness’ with PC Shareware libraries results from the fact that
most of them now use CD ROMs as their source of material. Fortunately,
this has not happened with the Archimedes and, because of the much lower
volume, it probably never will. Most PC libraries have almost identical
catalogues and charges, and those that depart from this formula have
much higher prices.
7.8
There are very few Archimedes libraries that I could recommend and one
or two that I would advise you to avoid, but any suggestions I make
would be biased by my own preferences and interests and yours could be
very different. Almost all libraries will, of course, have copies of all
the most well known programs.
7.8
If this was a field where you would have to spend a lot of money to
investigate for yourself, I would feel obliged to make some suggestions,
but it costs very little. Most libraries supply a catalogue disc for a
pound and, as there are only a handful, for very little expenditure, you
can obtain catalogues from all the major libraries. This is exactly what
I would encourage anyone to do who wants to know more about Archimedes
PD and Shareware. Not only will it reveal to the uninitiated just how
much is available, but it will also show which areas each library gives
prominence to. This will probably eliminate some, as their interests
won’t correspond with yours. If you want some discs, order a couple from
each of the libraries which have the sort of material you want. See
which deal with your order and queries quickly and efficiently. Once
again, I have my own preferences but I could be mistaken, and it will
probably be a rewarding task for you to experiment for yourself.
7.8
If you do, please write and tell me what you find. If I get enough
correspondence on this point to form some sort of consensus, I will
perhaps be able to make some recommendations based on your experiences
rather than just my own and hearsay.
7.8
Image
7.8
This is a new program from Ian Palmer (WordHound, BLIB, etc.) for
manipulating 16bpp and 24bpp images. It certainly appears very
interesting as it can alter the colour range, filter an image, resize
it, rotate it, merge two images, and so on. It can handle Sprites, Clear
files, PBMPlus, GIF and JPEG.
7.8
So far as I aware, this is the first package of this type to be made
available as Shareware or PD and with a registration fee of only £12, it
seems very good value.
7.8
RMA manger
7.8
This has been around for a while now but I was reluctant to recommend it
until I had tried it thoroughly. The idea is to try to return unused
blocks of memory in the Relocatable Module Area so that they can be used
by other applications.
7.8
When you kill a module or when it gives up workspace which it has been
using, although this RAM is, in theory, available for other applications
to use, it is quite often fragmented. There is no provision in RISC OS
for these blocks to be ‘tidied up’ and this results in lots of small
pieces of unused (and unuseable) RAM accumulating. After a time, quite a
bit can be used up in this way. What RMA Manager does is to try to
collect all of these small pieces together into one block at the end of
the RMA, where they can either be used by new modules or returned to the
Wimp Pool. In fact, this is another good example of a PD program helping
to make up for the shortcomings in the Archimedes OS.
7.8
Desktop customising
7.8
One very useful feature of RISC OS 3 is that the sprites used by the
Wimp to create the desktop can be replaced. As well as the icons for
disc drives, directories and the standard filetypes, the windows are
made up of a collection of sprites, and these, too, can be replaced.
Collections of sprites for customising window are usually called ‘Tools’
to distinguish them from those used to modify the file icons. The latter
can, of course, be used with RISC OS 2 as well, but tool sprites will
only work with RISC OS 3.
7.8
Most Archimedes users have probably seen a copy of Acorn’s ‘New Look’
which uses this feature to give a foretaste of possible future desktops,
but there are many others available in PD. One of the best of these is
DeskPatch. This is actually a collection of items and as well as some
rather nice directory and drive icons, it produces other improvements as
well, including attractive solid 3D file dragging and a better multi-
file drag icon than the one provided by Acorn.
7.8
What prompted me to raise this is that I took my A5000 along to the
recent NCS Open Day and a lot of people remarked upon my desktop. I have
become so accustomed to it that I no longer notice it but I certainly
find the ‘normal’ Acorn desktop very dated now. I have avoided things
like ‘fancy’ backdrops and high resolution screen modes because I prefer
things to be fast and functional rather than pretty, but over the past
year my desktop has become somewhat ‘personalised’. As well as
DeskPatch, I use some Window Tool sprites taken from a PD set and a
system font that I discovered among hundreds of others.
7.8
I have put together a disc of desktop sprites and tools plus DeskPatch
for this month’s special offer. You might think, as I did at first, that
you can’t be bothered with all this ‘fancy’ stuff but it’s amazing how
much you can do to customise your desktop.
7.8
For a copy of this disc, please send a cheque for £1 or four first class
stamps to me at 39 Knighton Park Road, Sydenham, London SE26 5RN.  A
7.8
Kerner  and KernAll
7.8
Dave Walsh
7.8
Kerning is the process by which two letters are moved closer together,
e.g. between the A and the W of AW − or should that be AW? Kerner and
KernAll aim to provide automatic kerning information between letters in
all applications.
7.8
Without doubt, text that has been kerned looks more professional, and
the ability to add kerning information to the RISC OS 2 fonts is very
attractive. There are two components to the system, one to add the data
to the font (but remember to keep an original of the font just in
case...) and the other a small module that redirects font data and tells
it to use kerned data instead.
7.8
Kerner allows the kerning data to be added to your current fonts by
having an individual font directory dragged to its icon on the iconbar.
A manual kerner control panel appears and you are ready to start.
Unfortunately, even though the first part of the manual was obviously
written for a complete novice, as soon as it approached the “techy” bit,
it fell a little short. Kerner works by calculating the space between
pairs of letters; these can either be laboriously typed in or accepted
from a pre-defined file. There didn’t appear to be any way of seeing
which pairs had been selected in the pre-defined file before the
calculation, or of saving any series that you typed in yourself for
further use.
7.8
Putting this small technical hitch aside, I continued with the automatic
kerning option (after which I could see a list of letter pairs that had
been kerned) on the Bede font. Sure enough, all the letters intermingled
in a far more aesthetically pleasing way on the sample words I tried.
Similarly, I kerned my Freehand font without thinking, only to find that
the tails no longer connected − which is why you should keep a safe
backup of the fonts before using Kerner!
7.8
Manual kerning is also very simple to undertake by dragging the right
hand letter towards or away from the left hand letter until you are
happy. It was at this point that I decided to try the Kernall function
of the program (which incidentally needs to be loaded before the !Fonts
application is initialised). As promised in the manual, it kerns the
letters beautifully in any application but it was whilst using Draw that
a rather serious flaw emerged. Although the font is kerned, the screen
still thinks that the word ends where the unkerned word would have
ended. In Draw, you could simply change the text to a path, ungroup the
letters and then regroup them to get rid of the extra “invisible”
letters at the end of the word, but could you really call this
“automatic kerning”?
7.8
Similarly, in Impression II and Advance (though not in Ovation), the
text is extended by the invisible space that would have been occupied by
the unkerned letters. Editing a document when the caret position does
not indicate the true text position is rather unnerving. Searching
within the application help notes, I came to the solution “Some programs
may have a few problems with this, such as Impression, where the cursor
appears where it used to, but the text is kerned. The best solution is
to wait for a new version.” I wonder if this is a new version of Kerner
or of Impression? It was whilst printing out from Impression through a
Turbo Driver that another apparent shortfall came to light, when the
printer superimposed the kerned text with a condensed typeface version.
7.8
In summary, Kerner does what it sets out to do, although Kernall clashes
with standard, best-selling software quite fatally. If you are lucky
enough to have a system where the kerned data can be used without using
Kernall, you will appreciate its features, otherwise the message seems
to be, in Design Concept’s words, “wait for a new version”.
7.8
Kerner and Kernall, from Design Concept, costs £15 inclusive.  A
7.8
Punctuate
7.8
Rocky Grove
7.8
There are two separate programs called “Punctuate”. One is from Xavier
Software and costs £32 +VAT and the other is from Topologika and costs
£20 +VAT or £22 through Archive.
7.8
Both programs aim to provide tuition and practice in English punctuation
skills. To save confusion due to the almost identical tiles I shall
refer to the programs by the name of the software house i.e. Topologika
and Xavier.
7.8
Punctuate from Topologika
7.8
This program, first released in 1987, is a former BBC program. According
to the manual, the only change from the BBC version is that the scores
can be saved to Edit. It takes over the whole screen and makes no use of
the mouse.
7.8
To quote the manual, “it works like this. ‘Stories’, from which selected
punctuation marks have been deleted, are displayed. The player’s job is
to put them back.” It is aimed at children from “eight to adult”.
7.8
The manual
7.8
The manual is written for all computers with an Archimedes insert. (Is
this really necessary in the days of word processing?) It is quite a
well-written document, two thirds of which give an educational
background to the need for developing the skill of punctuation. This
includes children’s writing and extracts from the National Curriculum.
Unfortunately, the oldest example of a child’s work is from Emmeline −
aged 7, and all the other work is from younger children. This seems
strange when the stated age for which the program is aimed, is children
of eight years and older (an age range with which I would concur).
Instructions for the use of the program do not appear until page 16, but
they are not particularly necessary as there is a comprehensive series
of Tutor sessions on the disc, which take you through the basic use.
7.8
The program
7.8
When the program is loaded, you are presented with the initial menu
choice of; stories, punctuation marks, speed and sound volume; plus,
following the entry of a password, access to the teachers’ page. When
you have made your choice, you are given a page of text stripped of
whatever punctuation marks you have chosen (including capital letters).
At the bottom of the screen, on the left, is a box containing the
removed punctuation marks. On the right is a box labelled “Done”, which
contains the marks which have been successfully placed. The marks are
chosen at random and have to be steered by use of the cursor keys to
their correct place. Correct answers gain points and incorrect ones lose
them. <Escape> can be pressed to give up on that mark (and lose even
more points!) but I found it a drawback, that the only way to terminate
in the middle of a story was to select each uncompleted mark in turn and
press <escape> for each one.
7.8
The teachers’ page
7.8
This allows you to customize the exercises and to edit or enter text. It
is fairly straightforward for children or teachers to enter their own
text. Indeed, this is a necessary procedure as the supplied texts are
not really meant for class use. The text entry is very reminiscent of
the old BBC days − memories of my youth! There is word-wrap and left
justification. The only correction is by deleting back to the mistake or
finishing and editing the text. To edit the text you have to copy and
then amend it. This part can be confusing for those who are more used to
modern word processing packages. One handy utility for the clumsy is a
utility called !Recover which recovers any accidentally deleted stories.
7.8
Overall, it is a fairly basic program which just about does the job it
sets out to do; but it is very dated. Its main advantage is that it
treats capital letters as punctuation marks and therefore is of use to
children who are starting to punctuate their work.
7.8
Punctuate from Xavier (version 1.01)
7.8
This program is written specifically for the Archimedes and is thus far
more modern. The menu screen is multitasking although, once the program
is run, it takes over the whole display. The program can be terminated
at almost any time by pressing <escape>. One note − the copy with which
I was originally supplied, was only for RISC OS 2 (same version number!
but  I got the error “Unable to move memory”). I was very speedily
supplied with an upgrade by Xavier.
7.8
To quote the manual, “It is the intention of the program to provide both
tuition and practice in English punctuation skills.”
7.8
The manual
7.8
The manual is straightforward and well written. It takes you step by
step through all the program’s facilities.
7.8
Installation
7.8
Before using the program for the first time, you have to initialize the
disc by entering the user’s name as the software owner. Once this has
been done, you apply to Xavier for a Lock code number. This then allows
you to make backup copies or install the program on hard disc or
network.
7.8
The program
7.8
Once the program is loaded, a menu is displayed, from which you can
select the list of sentences to be used, the punctuation marks to be
worked on, and one of three activities at three different levels.
7.8
The Tutor displays a sentence above which are ten punctuation marks.
Using the mouse pointer and on screen arrow icons, you chose the place
in the sentence and then the appropriate mark. A Clue is available which
highlights the missing mark. A Help facility will display either a
brief, or a detailed, explanation of the required punctuation mark.
7.8
The Speed Test is described as a light relief game. A displayed sentence
has one punctuation mark removed. At the top of the screen, the ten
punctuation marks rotate at quite a speed. You have to click on the
missing mark.
7.8
The Quiz Master is the most complicated and difficult of the three
options. It is, again, a type of game. The user selects the level of
difficulty and then has to choose from three possible solutions to a
punctuation problem before the time runs out.
7.8
The three Levels select the speed of the games and the number of
punctuation marks used. Practice allows the user to choose which ones
are used, and only use one mark at a time. Basic has a mixture,
excluding dash and brackets and Advanced uses all the available marks.
7.8
By clicking <menu> over the menu page, you get the choice of creating or
editing sentences or printing worksheets. These are fairly simple in
operation, the first two using normal word processing facilities. A
useful extra is that there is a facility to give alternative marks − for
example in the following sentence: Mary works hard;/, but she needs the
money. Either the semi-colon or comma would be acceptable and the
program allows for this.
7.8
This is a comprehensive program which, on the whole, succeeds in
providing an aid to learning punctuation. In my view, there are two main
draw backs. Firstly, capital letters are not treated as punctuation
marks, which means that the program is pretty useless for teaching full
stops on their own − the first stage in teaching punctuation. Secondly,
whatever level is chosen, all ten punctuation marks are displayed,
making it unnecessarily complicated for the younger child.
7.8
Conclusion
7.8
Both my colleagues and I have used the programs with the whole range of
Key Stage 2 children. Both programs have their strengths and weaknesses.
I feel that the Topologika program is more suited for the lower end of
Key Stage 2 while the Xavier one would be better suited for the oldest
children at Key Stage 2 and probably most of Key Stage 3.
7.8
At a time when the average primary school is lucky to have more than one
computer per class, I have one niggling worry concerning any program of
this type which normally takes quite a time to complete. Is it a good
use of computer time for one pupil to practice punctuation while other,
more comprehensive programs, like word processors, databases, turtle
graphics, simulations, etc are lying idle?  A
7.8
Opening Doors on IT Capability
7.8
Nick Harris
7.8
“Opening Doors on IT Capability − Educational Courseware from ITAL” is
the rather long-winded title for integrated collections of data in the
forms such as text, graphics, CSV and sound files. They contain extracts
from various sources such as newspapers, books, plays, etc in the form
of pictures, photographs, maps, graphs, drawings, data and/or sound. The
files also include tutor’s notes and sets of student activities.
7.8
Each collection comes in a plastic case slightly smaller than a video
cassette and, apart from a very brief explanatory sheet, there are no
actual printed instructions. However, it is possible to purchase a video
to accompany each set and also printouts of the text files.
7.8
The purpose of each package is “... to allow students to demonstrate
higher levels of IT capability. Currently, students have to collect all
their own data, and then process it, or the data arrives fully processed
in applications. These packages remove the hassle of collecting
information, leaving the challenge of handling and communicating it in
an exciting way.
7.8
What is more, by using spreadsheets and multimedia authoring packages,
students can also be actively involved in modelling.”
7.8
The packages contain one or more labelled and numbered discs all of
which hold !ArcFS (read only), plus a utility to set mode 15 on a
double-click and a directory of compressed data.
7.8
The first disc in each set also has a !Starthere file which explains
that all the package basically requires is a simple working knowledge of
Paint, Edit and Draw and directions as to which files to read first in
the Tutor’s Directory. In the multi-disc sets a “map” of the package is
given and also some information about relevance to the National
Curriculum.
7.8
Four sets have so far been issued, Using Pictures (KS2/3 History) £15,
Using Objects 1 (KS2/3 History & Technology) £20, Impressionism, (KS2/3
Art) £40 and Limestone Scenery (KS3/4 Geography) £40. These prices from
ITAL are inclusive of VAT and cover the cost of a site licence.
7.8
“Using Pictures”
7.8
A CSV file lists all the 120 plates in Pyne’s “Microcosm”  “...a
national work devoted to the domestic, rural and commercial scenery of
Great Britain and may be considered as a monument, in the rustic style,
raised to her glory” and nine sprite files of single plates. There are a
series of eight text files which introduce the student to the following
skills: (a) learning to look at pictures, (b) using pictures as primary
sources for history and (c) computer-based picture-handling and database
techniques.
7.8
Some of the activities are: (1) identifying from which illustrations
details have been taken (2) finding details from short descriptions (3)
comparing a full written list of illustrations with those on disc (4)
interrogating a datafile of illustrations (5) more general questions
using the datafile (6) comparing domestic life then and now (7) A Day in
the Life − historical imagination (8) considering the reliability and
usefulness of historical sources.
7.8
“Using Objects”
7.8
A CSV file lists basic physical data and a set of 24 digitised
photographs illustrate the objects: “eight domestic irons”. Text files
present a range of eleven activities that use the pictures and data
supplied as both historical evidence and showing technological
advancement. In addition, the Tutor file contains answers to some of the
activities.
7.8
“Impressionism”
7.8
This is a four disc set containing text files on the history of the
period, short biographies of nine Impressionists and simple written
descriptions to accompany the seventeen digitised pictures. Fourteen
activities, from looking at pictures to using Paint and Draw as creative
tools, are given plus some extras.
7.8
“Limestone Scenery”
7.8
This is a four disc set with maps, diagrams and thirty photographs of
the area around Malham, Goredale and Ingleborough in North Yorkshire.
There are nine activities that aim to cover: revision of basic ideas
(weathering, erosion, deposition), practice of map skills, knowledge of
limestone features, understanding of the processes which help to form
them, knowledge and understanding of the three major factors affecting
the landscape in the area under study and ability to identify limestone
scenery.
7.8
Conclusions
7.8
I have been looking at these packs during the school holidays and
therefore have not had the opportunity to use the sets with classes,
however some points can be made.
7.8
The scanning used for the coloured images has resulted in low resolution
in the non-photographic images and also seems to have produced
aberrations in the Impressionists’ colour and texture which makes them
inferior to photographic reproductions. This makes it rather difficult
to see and comment on the details required for answering many of the
questions.
7.8
If Paint, Edit and Draw really are so effective, why has so much other
software been written? I suspect that many teachers would be more
familiar with applications purchased in addition to those supplied with
the machine so that using Paint, Edit and Draw might appear to them to
be a retrograde step. Some of the activities seem very basic − such as
simply finding and matching or completing sentences. These hardly
justify the expense of using the hardware. But then other activities are
more sophisticated, e.g. designing one’s own worksheet, so that there
seems to be a conflict between data, data handling techniques, software
and hardware.
7.8
I can appreciate that working through the activities, which do contain
data that pupils will not have to search for, would certainly fulfil IT
criteria. I feel, however, that the main content of the packages might
be better suited to being presented in book or folder form, given the
problems of accessing and examining the data by opening and closing
multiple windows in different applications especially in Paint.
7.8
ITAL are perhaps correct when they suggest that the data should be used
with a multimedia authoring program and a confident teacher might well
prefer to tailor the data and activities with such a program, to create
their own IT experience. Problematically, some of the data is copyright
(e.g. all the pictures in Impressionism and the OS maps in Limestone
Scenery) and cannot, I assume, be copied or printed out,  which will
make it difficult to use these packs in a multi-user classroom
situation.  A
7.8
Multimedia Column
7.8
Paul Hooper
7.8
(Having added some material about Key Author, Paul was going to call
this the “Genesis/Magpie/Key Author Column”, so we’ve agreed to change
it to “Multimedia”! Ed.)
7.8
Which multimedia are you using?
7.8
I have had a number of requests from teachers in Norfolk to cover Key
Author in this column, as many of the schools around here appear to be
using this particular multimedia package. Thanks to Peter Stibbons of
Anglia TV, I am now beginning to get to grips with this package. I will
start converting some of the existing binders in the Swap Shop in the
next couple of weeks to Key Author format, but I would like to see some
other work prepared using this package. So if you have done any, please
send them to the address at the end of the article.
7.8
This brings me on to the question in the title. With the availability of
Genesis, Magpie and Key Author, as well as Optima, GenUp, ClearView and
others, I was wondering whch is the most used multimedia package and
why? If you have any thoughts on this please write to me.
7.8
The Horizon Project
7.8
As any user of Genesis will be aware, Hampshire Microtechnology Centre
have published the final report on the Horizon Project along with the
CD-ROM. The original project was set up to allow schools in Hampshire to
create their own multimedia programs using Genesis, with support and
help from the Centre. Having now read the report and viewed many of the
applications on the CD-ROM, I am once again staggered at the abilities
of many of the pupils in our schools.
7.8
The Project was funded by Acorn but, as the report states, “...it is
clear that the enthusiasm of teachers and children was its real driving
force.” Certainly, the use of multimedia seems to have motivated the
pupils, but quite why this is, the report leaves open. To me, one of the
most revealing comments in the report was a quote from a ten-year-old
who concluded that creating a multimedia package “is much harder than
writing an essay, but I don’t mind spending the time on it. You keep
seeing ways to make it better, like adding audio and finding easier ways
to link the pages”.
7.8
Case studies
7.8
After the introduction and a brief history of the project, the report
takes twelve case studies which are very revealing. It seems that the
biggest problem is not so much the lack of resources or expertise in
schools but more a lack of time. This will come as no surprise to many
hard pressed teachers!
7.8
One of the more surprising outcomes of the project is the fact that a
vast majority of the applications were produced by primary schools
rather than secondaries. The report concludes that the cross-curricular
nature of multimedia is more suited to the Primary sector rather than
the more subject-based secondary sector.
7.8
The report is available from Hampshire Microtechnology Centre, Connaught
Lane, Paulsgrove Portsmouth PO6 4SJ. (0705-378266) Any teacher with an
interest in multimedia should get a copy for the excellent ideas and
case studies that it provides.
7.8
Copyright?
7.8
The report does make particular reference to the problems of discovering
copyright-free materials. I have always been very careful about the
materials that I use in applications. Yet it is very difficult to work
out what is copyright material and what is not. For example, if there is
an illustration in a book and it has been drawn by the author, it is
obviously his copyright. If, on the other hand, this author illustrates
his point about the Civil War with a contemporary illustration taken
from a broadsheet, is there any copyright on this and, if so, whose is
it? What about scanning pictures from books that are now out of print,
or from newspapers which are no longer published? How old does material
need to be before it is out of copyright? What about material that is
kept in national museums? If you video an object, can you then use a
still from that video in an application?
7.8
If I use something from a PD library that is later discovered to be
copyright, am I liable or is the library liable? I have heard it said
that if you are a member of an organisation that charges a fee, say the
Scout Movement, then you are entitled to use material that is copyright
to that organisation − but I don’t know if this is correct. Is there an
Archive reader who is a lawyer and who could come up with answers to
some of these questions?
7.8
The challenge
7.8
Back in March, I issued a challenge to readers to devise a way to keep a
running total in a quiz within a Genesis application. I knew this was a
difficult one and wasn’t surprised when I didn’t get any replies for a
few weeks. Yet within the last week, I have had five replies, from
different parts of the country, all offering the same solution. I must
admit that it is not the solution that I had thought up!
7.8
First from Peter Walder, “Essentially the trick is to create a page
which, whilst being open as far as Genesis was concerned, is not
actually visible on the screen. This page is hidden by using page
coordinates which means that, whilst the page is open, it is not
actually displayed. Information in the hidden screen was accessible to
any other Genesis page at any point during the use of the application.
The command HIDE WINDOW will do this for you. We used the technique so
that information that is entered at the start of the application, such
as name, date of birth, etc, could be stored out of sight and then be
‘read back in’ and printed out in a page designed to look like a
certificate at the very end of the application when the user has
completed a number of tasks.”
7.8
Graham Anderson of Itchen College in Southampton went one better, not
only did he suggest the same solution but he also included a quick quiz
on disc which I will put on the monthly disc. Graham says, “The idea is
to have a hidden page on which a frame holds the value of the current
score. The frame that holds the running score is created when the page
is opened by script text something like:
7.8
ON OPEN SET CONTENTS OF “Score” TO (CONT-ENTS OF “RTotal” ON PAGE 1)
7.8
To update the score we can use :
7.8
SET CONTENTS OF “RTotal” ON PAGE 1 TO (( CONTENTS OF “RTotal” ON PAGE
1)+1)
7.8
Thanks to both Peter and Graham for these suggestions, a couple of
Archive mugs each will be winging their way to you.
7.8
My solution
7.8
Rather than use the hidden page method, my solution relied on the
ability of Genesis to transmit contents of boxes from one page to the
next. For the first page, we set the running total box (called Score27)
to 0 using the script below:
7.8
DEF FRAME “Score27”
7.8
WORD “”
7.8
STYLE 8
7.8
FGCOL 7
7.8
BGCOL 0
7.8
AT 480 -672 608 -576
7.8
BORDER
7.8
END FRAME
7.8
SET total TO 0
7.8
DEF PROC “add”
7.8
BEGIN
7.8
SET total TO total + 5
7.8
SET CONTENTS OF “Score27” TO total
7.8
END
7.8
Procedure ‘add’ increases the score and should be called when the
correct answer is given. I also have a procedure called ‘minus’ which
takes a couple of points off if you get it wrong.
7.8
On the next page I call the running total box ‘Score28’ and then set its
contents using the following script:
7.8
SET CONTENTS OF “Score28” TO CONTENTS OF “Score27” ON PAGE 27
7.8
Now I reset the variable ‘total’ to the contents of ‘Score28’ using the
modified procedure ‘add’ as below:
7.8
DEF PROC “add”
7.8
BEGIN
7.8
SET total TO CONTENTS OF “Score28”
7.8
SET total TO total + 5
7.8
SET CONTENTS OF “Score28” TO total
7.8
END
7.8
Thus we can continue to build up any number of pages using this method.
To show how this works, on the monthly disc is !PPH, the quiz out of
“the Plague” that uses this method.
7.8
The Magpie Challenge
7.8
This month I think its time to challenge all the Magpie users. Can you
devise a binder of, say, four or five scrolling pages, with a piece of
music playing in the background? The trick is that the music must NOT
restart each time the page is opened but must continue playing without
interruption? This rules out using the preferences page but it is
possible. One clue is to think about the music, not the binder!
7.8
Hints and tips
7.8
No matter how well you think you know a program, there are always things
that come as a complete surprise to you. I was discussing the
improvements to Genesis with a salesman from Oak at the NCS Open Day. I
started to complain that if you had two different Genesis applications
running at once and then you tried quitting one of them, the whole
machine locked. I’ve always performed a soft reset to get out of this
and had to wait for the machine to reboot. Imagine my surprise and
embarrassment when, using my own machine, the salesman pointed out that
if I pressed escape instead of the soft reset, the application would
quit quite happily!
7.8
The Swap Shop
7.8
We have added three more Magpie binders to the catalogue. These come
from Nicholas Horn in Thetford and use Magpie as a way of delivering
science support materials. Images 1 and 2 contain images on plant
tissue, pollution and earth science. Water Transport shows how plants
take up the water that they require. All three binders have electron
micrographs of plant tissue and are designed for A-level students and
those in further education.
7.8
All the programs within the Swap Shop are available to any reader of
Archive or any educational establishments completely free of charge. All
you have to do is send a blank formatted DD or HD disc to the address at
the end of the article and I will send you the latest copy of the
catalogue from which you can order.
7.8
Wot no Professional?
7.8
As I write this on 24th March, and there is still no sign of Genesis
Professional as yet. My contacts within Oak inform me that the manuals
are to be delivered next Monday and they will start shipping towards the
end of the week. So, by the time you read this, I should have got to
grips with it and I will do a review next month.
7.8
The End Bit
7.8
If you have any questions about Genesis or Magpie or if you would like
to send me any applications, please send them to Paul Hooper, 11
Rochford Road, Martham, Great Yarmouth, NR29 4RL. (0493-748474)  A
7.8
TOM
7.8
Robert Chrismas
7.8
TOM is a simulation of simple computer. The user can enter programs in
TOM’s memory and then watch what happens to TOM’s program counter,
accumulator and memory as the program is executed. It could be used as
part of a formal instruction program or by someone on their own who
wanted a simple introduction to programming in assembly language.
7.8
TOM is a standard RISC OS desktop application. It supports the !Help
application and it can be entirely mouse driven although the keyboard
may be used.
7.8
The TOM window shows the 48 word memory, accumulator, program counter,
keypad for input, a scrolling output device and a control pad.
7.8
Programs are entered directly into TOM’s memory. The initial values of
accumulator and the program counter can be set and then the control pad
is used to run the program. Program execution may be fast, slow or
single step execution. Any output appears on the simulated printer.
7.8
A decimal computer
7.8
All values are displayed in decimal. The display allows up to six digits
for each word, or five with a ‘−’ sign. However, despite what the
documentation says, it seems possible to store and calculate with much
larger numbers.
7.8
The instruction set
7.8
The TOM instruction set will seem quite strange to programmers of modern
microcomputers. About fifteen years ago, I remember teaching a similar
‘simulated’ low level language called CESIL (Computer Education in
Schools Instruction Language) to CSE students. (Never mind CESIL, who
remembers CSEs?)
7.8
TOM’s instruction set comprises:
7.8
  0  Halt
7.8
  1  Load accumulator
7.8
  2  Store accumulator
7.8
  3  Add to accumulator
7.8
  4  Subtract from accumulator
7.8
  5  Multiply accumulator
7.8
  6  Divide accumulator
7.8
  7  Jump unconditionally
7.8
  8  Jump if accumulator negative
7.8
  9  Jump if accumulator zero
7.8
  10  Jump indirect
7.8
  11  Input to accumulator
7.8
  12  Output from accumulator
7.8
Unless otherwise stated, the addressing mode is absolute or implied.
There is no immediate addressing. TOM halts if it encounters an invalid
opcode.
7.8
The three least significant decimal digits store the address, if one is
required. The next two digits (thousands and tens of thousands) store
the opcode.
7.8
The manual
7.8
The 19-page A4 manual includes sections on computer architecture, the
TOM instruction set, using TOM, and some worked examples. Four of the
chapters include a page of exercises so the reader can make sure he/she
has understood what has been covered. There were no solutions to the
exercises but the questions were quite easy. There is sufficient
information in the manual to provide a basic introduction to the
architecture and operation of a stored program computer. With ingenuity,
it is possible to write programs which make even a very simple
‘computer’ like TOM do quite interesting things, but when someone
understands enough about programming to do so, they have no further need
of TOM. (The page numbers on the contents page are incorrect!)
7.8
TOM programs are saved as simple text files which can be loaded again by
dragging them onto the TOM window. Editing facilities are minimal; if
you need to insert an instruction near the start of a program, the only
alternative to altering every line is to save the program, adjust it in
Edit and then load it back again.
7.8
The version of TOM used for this review (version 1.1) includes a
disassemble option which displays the opcodes as two character
mnemonics.
7.8
The name ‘TOM’ stands for ‘Thoroughly Obedient Moron’ which probably
will not go down well in these ‘more politically correct than thou’
days.
7.8
Conclusion
7.8
Part of the introduction in the manual says ‘TOM enables inexperienced
users to get to grips with the concepts of machine code while ignoring
the complications of using a real assembler ...’ So it is no criticism
to point out that the language which TOM uses is quite a long way from
modern micro-computer languages and that the simulation does not
include: binary representation, addressing modes, display of flag
values, stack handling, etc. TOM does what it sets out to do; you can
enter programs written in an ‘assembly language’ and you can watch what
happens as they are executed.
7.8
TOM is available from Keylink Computers Ltd, single user version £29.95
+VAT, site licence £99.95 +VAT.  A
7.8
Choices
7.8
Hilary Ferns
7.8
There is a vast amount of potential for using this content-free program
in the Primary school. It has been developed by Widgit Software as part
of the Software Development Partnership Scheme by NCET.
7.8
What is Choices ?
7.8
It provides templates to create multiple choice type activities using
numbers, words, pictures, animation and sound. Over 30 excellent, user-
friendly activities (called exercises) come as part of the package.
Each exercise can be configured to respond to mouse, keyboard, concept
keyboard, touch window or switch control.
7.8
Any exercise can contain up to twenty screens, and as each is correctly
completed one is rewarded by a sound. The end of a whole exercise is
denoted by another musical interlude. You can set up a group of varied
exercises. Several different sounds are provided, or you can create your
own horrible noises using digitised sound. The simple sprites provided
include animals, transport, flowers, teapots, mugs, umbrellas, food,
clothes, actions, numbers, dice, coloured shapes, spotted ladybirds,
etc.
7.8
Starting off
7.8
The program loads in the usual way, but clicking on the icon on the
iconbar does not set the program running. You are required to drag a
Resources ‘folder’ (directory) to the icon, at which point the title
screen and menu appear. You can simply slide off the Start option to
reach a submenu showing the available exercises. I ran exercises
successfully from both floppy and hard disc. A short synopsis on each
one is provided as an appendix to the documentation. The documentation
was easy to follow, although not particularly well presented.
7.8
The exercises
7.8
The program comes with a huge selection of exercises, provided on four
floppy discs. Many of these follow similar ideas, for example: picking
the odd one out of a small group; sorting into sets according to
different criteria; matching dice and ladybirds to numbers; copying
sequences; pelmanism; snap. In addition to the exercises which have
obvious right and wrong answers, there are a few activities which allow
children to select their own preferences (e.g. clothes, food) and to
select a yellow blob to inform the computer that the activity or
sequence is complete. (This could be used for the start of simple
sentence construction.) Disc 4 is devoted to jigsaws with square pieces
which can be put together using various rules.
7.8
In order to give a little more detail of the program, I will explain a
few of the exercises provided:
7.8
OddType − Each screen has four pictures (e.g. lion, elephant,
helicopter, tiger), and a question (e.g. Which one is not an animal? or
Which one goes on water?) By using the mouse or space bar, a selection
box is moved from one picture to the next, and the correct answer
selected, again by mouse, keyboard, concept keyboard or switch control,
depending on how you have configured the devices.
7.8
FindCover − This shows a small picture at the bottom which must be
matched to one from a choice of four on the screen. At the initial key
or mouse click, the four pictures are covered up and you have to
remember the box where the matching one is hiding. An extension of this
covering up idea is used in a pelmanism exercise.
7.8
Snap − Here a series of pictures sit on top of each other, and clicking,
etc, will cycle through the pile. It can also be set to cycle through on
its own, the user only intervening for the snap.
7.8
Copy6 − Each member of a set of six ladybirds must be matched with the
numeral corresponding to the number of spots. Likewise, dice are matched
to numerals. The template used for this could be adapted to perform
varyious word-matching exercises at many different levels.
7.8
Sort3×3 − Nine objects are sorted by either shape, number or colour into
three sets of three.
7.8
Designing your own exercises
7.8
The introduction to the booklet suggests that many teachers would be
getting good value for money if they use the program only with its
existing screens. I would agree with this, but perhaps point out that
the exercises provided are excellent only for infants and special needs.
You can adapt existing activities, or develop your own. Unless you have
a vast supply of suitable clipart, you would probably stick to exercises
using the existing pictures. Pictures can be freely taken from one set
of resources to another (via the RAM disc). I used both Draw and FontFX
to create numbers and words for maths and language activities, which
were then imported quite successfully to a resources folder (where they
are automatically converted to sprites). Once there, they are available
for you to use in extending existing exercises or creating new ones.
7.8
Each activity is designed from a template. The layout and behaviour of
any exercise are determined by the design of the underlying template.
The existing content-free templates can be adapted, or new ones can be
created form scratch. It is this which is time-consuming and therefore
probably impractical for most class teachers.
7.8
Various icons have to be set ‘on’ or ‘off’ to determine such things as
which picture will be the correct answer; whether an arrow or a box
cursor moves from item to item; whether correct items need to be picked
in a particular order; whether items are covered up (as in pelmanism);
whether they will appear randomly or in fixed positions; whether the
chosen item is moved to another place on the screen.
7.8
The finished template is automatically saved into a resources folder. A
new resources folder, with its correct hierarchy of named sub-
directories, can easily be created by accessing the iconbar menu. Only
one resources folder can be in use at a time, and individual templates
cannot be extracted from folders. I found this rather annoying when I
wanted to use the template for a ‘snap’ game (in resources1) to add an
exercise to my resource folder (resources5). One way to have done it
would have been to copy the whole of folder 1, rename it, run the
program and delete the unwanted templates.  But then I would have been
without my templates from folder 5. Consequently I chose to recreate a
‘snap’ template, making note of the settings.
7.8
I have tried to think of ways in which the use of the program could be
extended to juniors and high-flying infants. Consequently, I have
successfully designed a set of exercises to give times tables practice,
and also a challenge to match flags to their correct countries. It is
actually worth investing time in it, as the finished product is of good
quality. Furthermore, I suspect there would be in every Year 6 group at
least one computer whizz-kid who would enjoy the challenge of designing
more activities.
7.8
To conclude...
7.8
Overall I feel ‘Choices’ is excellent value for money. The package I
reviewed is version 1.03 dated 1992, so I don’t know where it has been
hiding since, or indeed how many existing users are out there. Users are
permitted to distribute any resource material which they create,
provided of course the actual program is not included on the disc.
(Maybe the education column could act as a suitable link?)  A
7.8
AIM3 − Another Image Manager
7.8
Ken Cowap
7.8
AIM3 from The Delft University of Technology via Lingenuity is the
latest version of this image processing and management application,
updated to take full advantage of RISC OS3. In addition, it contains
improvements and some corrections to its predecessor AIM2 (for RISC
OS2). The software is primarily educational, giving the patient and
determined user a fairly deep insight into modern image analysis and
manipulation methods. Users with more modest needs will find image
improvement can be achieved without too much complexity. However, it is
limited to monochrome image output, though input may be mono or colour
and from a wide variety of formats and system types, including three
digitisers. Its great strength is its very wide range of powerful image
processing algorithms. It is not, however, an image manipulation package
in the manner of Paint or Draw and suchlike, though its images can be
output as sprites.
7.8
The package
7.8
AIM3 can be had as the software alone on two PD discs, costing £1.60, or
software plus documentation (about 100 pages). The latter comprises, in
one A5 volume: “Image Processing, a First Introduction”, “The AIM User’s
Manual” (version for RISC OS2) and “The AIM Reference Manual”. A
separate copy of the AIM User’s Manual Revision 1 for RISC OS3 is
included, supplementing the RISC OS 2 version in the main manual. All
this can be obtained from Lingenuity, cost £25 (no VAT). Disc 1 contains
the application itself and some special image files selected for various
undesirable characteristics to show how AIM3 can improve them. Disc 2
has copies of ChangeFSI, !Creator, !Translator, !Squash and a couple of
ordinary (squashed) sprites for experimentation.
7.8
Documentation
7.8
I would most definitely not recommend using the software without full
documentation; it is far too complex to yield to the intuitive approach,
particularly for a user starting on image manipulation. Having said
that, once the full books are available, it all becomes more
understandable, albeit in limited sessions. I found the first section
“Image Processing, a first introduction” very helpful, giving a
comprehensive overview of the whole concept, touching briefly on a wide
range of applications such as industrial inspection, medical and
biophysical, geology etc, as well as the methods used. The documentation
is well written and presented in an orderly sequence, with contents
lists and an index. The very few language translation idiosyncrasies
cause no real difficulties. Serious students might wish to study
“Digital Image Processing” (2nd. edition) by Rafael C Gonzalez/Paul
Wintz, ISBN 0-201-508036, from the Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.
7.8
AIM2 to AIM3 changes
7.8
Existing RISC OS 2 version users will find it easy to evaluate the
differences between their version and the new one. The AIM User’s Manual
Revision 1 has margin lines denoting added or changed sections. I will
mention only the more important ones − certainly top of the list comes
the ability to accept images larger than the previous limit of 256×256
pixels, though obviously this incurs a memory penalty. Bear in mind that
AIM3 always needs the memory for four images even though the relevant
windows may have been removed from the screen.
7.8
To cope with larger images, a separate linking header file is
automatically written containing the relevant details; consequently the
writef[ile] option is now different.
7.8
The histogram analysis now includes calculated statistics and an extra
utility “histostat” prints the figures without displaying them.
7.8
An edit operation now permits selection of a part of the displayed image
by “drawing” a rectangle to enclose the wanted portion. This portion can
then be copied to another AIM display window, saved to disc or directly
copied into an open application.
7.8
Compatibility with the Computer Concepts, Wild Vision and Irlam EPSON
range and “I-Scan” digitisers/scanners is now embodied. The disc 2
supplement contains copies of “ChangeFSI”, “Creator” and “Translator”
for increased versatility of image access from other platforms.
7.8
Operation
7.8
AIM3 uses four windows to display images at different stages of
processing, the user having fully flexible control of the sequence. This
is an excellent idea allowing fast recovery from a misguided process
step, and ease of process evaluation. With the default image size of
256×256 pixels this ploy isn’t too expensive on RAM, but it will be
appreciated that increasing the size of the four images rapidly makes a
4Mb machine a necessity, and one with a minimised iconbar content at
that.
7.8
A novel feature is provided by an additional scrolling window in which
the AIM-specific *-commands appear, either as they are keyed in or as
they are read from a macro, several of which are supplied. User-
originated macros can be developed using any text editor such as Edit.
The majority of operations are invoked from menu options and a minority
from AIM *-commands. This might sound untidy (why not all as menu
options?) but, in practice, it causes no trouble.
7.8
The ‘engines’ of AIM3 are its 116 operational algorithms. It would be
quite impossible to describe all of them even briefly; I shall just list
the ‘families’ and describe a few interesting ones, with some
illustrations.
7.8
Grey-Value Image Operations
7.8
Grey-Value Point Operations (4)
7.8
Grey-Value Geometric and Arithmetic (28)
7.8
Grey-Value Non-Arithmetic (6)
7.8
Grey-Value Filter Operations
7.8
Linear Filters (18)
7.8
Non-Linear Filters (25)
7.8
Adaptive Filters (2)
7.8
Binary Operations
7.8
Morphologic (Cellular Logic) Operations (12)
7.8
Bitplane Binary Operations (7)
7.8
Measurements in Binary Images (3)
7.8
Utility Operations
7.8
Display (4)
7.8
Timer (2)
7.8
Statistics (2)
7.8
Miscellaneous (3)
7.8
Figure 1
7.8
Figure 2
7.8
Figures 1 and 2 illustrate the improvement to be had from a single pass
of the Enhance (Laplace) filter which operates on successive 3×3 pixel
groups using the following pattern:
7.8
   0 -1 0
7.8
  -1 5 -1
7.8
   0 -1 0
7.8
This attempts to reverse the out-of-focus degradation of the original
image caused by diffusion of what should have been a point (pixel) into
its neighbouring points.
7.8
Figure 3 illustrates the image improvement possible using a Grey-Value
Non-linear (Fixed Size and Shape) filter called ‘median’ and a Grey-
Value Linear (Fixed Size and Shape) filter called ‘enhance’,
alternately. Image ‘A’ is obviously badly degraded by shot-noise,
typically the result of a sub-standard transmission system. The ‘median’
filter is applied first, resulting in image ‘B’. This filter detects
‘solitary’ full-white pixels and calculates the median value of the
eight pixels surrounding each, then changes the pixel to that value,
effectively merging it into its immediate background. This filter also
detracts a little from image sharpness and after one pass (image ‘C’) a
few noise pixels still remain − probably these were clumped pixels.
Experimentation shows that the best final result is obtained by next
applying the ‘enhance’ filter. For the mathematically-minded, this is a
near-equivalent of the Laplace operator. This brightens up the image
(‘C’) considerably, but a little noise still remains; this can be
completely removed by a second ‘median’ pass, giving the quite
remarkable final result in ‘D’.
7.8
Figure 4 shows an image of the moon lander, seriously degraded by lack
of contrast and being far too dark. This is treated with the Grey-Value
Image Operations option ‘equal[isation]’ (histogram equalisation). This
generates (but doesn’t display) a histogram for the image and
recalculates the grey-values to be as flat as possible, resulting in
Figure 6. If the histogram is to be screened, the Utility Operation >
Statistics > Hist[ogram] option is selected and produces the results
shown in Figures 5 and 7. The clump of brightness levels well to the
left hand side of the graph in Figure 5 is re-distributed much more
evenly over the range of brightness values, resulting in Figure 6, a
great improvement. This is classed as Image Improvement, where the
factors causing the original poor quality are not known exactly but have
to be estimated by calculation.
7.8
A slightly different process classed as Image Restoration is provided
and can be applied if the degrading factors are known with some
precision. This is the same as the process applied to pictures received
from the Hubble Space Telescope before its recent refurbishment, and is
possible because the mirror inaccuracies were eventually determined very
accurately (if late!) and can be used in algorithms to correct the
received images.
7.8
Summary
7.8
This is a fascinating and very instructive package for students of the
wide range of image processing applications, from sorting mechanical
components in a factory, through pictorial reconstitution, to the
analysis of space images, and very many more. No bugs were found. The
documentation is of a high standard, and good value for money. The only
risk is that you can spend hours exploring it while other tasks get
neglected!  A
7.8
Figure 3
7.8
Figure 4
7.8
Figure 5
7.8
Figure 6
7.8
Figure 7
7.8
Creator 2
7.8
Robert McCann
7.8
The original version of Creator (which is a scrolling or platform games
creation system) was reviewed in Archive 6.7 p64 − the version under
review is 2.00b (Oct 25 1993).
7.8
Creator 2 is supplied in a video cassette box containing three discs, a
104 page A5 manual and some supplementary sheets. The discs are labelled
Programs, SoundFX and Examples and each disc contains a readme file with
further information about its contents. The supplement sheets explain in
more detail how to install the software onto hard/floppy disc.
7.8
New features of Creator 2 include:
7.8
Tiles
7.8
You can make up a larger background by using tiles which are small
sprites that might be parts of walls, doors, trees, windows, etc. The
use of tiles means that you don’t have to create large full-screen
backdrops but only small sections and then build up a complex picture
using the screen and map editors. The screenshot opposite shows a
section of the completed tutorial game. This is a full mode 27 screen,
to give you some idea how large the tiles are.
7.8
Multi-level games
7.8
There is now proper support for multi-level games that are made up of
different graphics and actions. In fact, the levels could be completely
different games.
7.8
Partial saves
7.8
Most of the editors allow you to save their individual contents, so it
is possible to build up a library of sprite files, path files, event-
handling lists, sound files etc. (Alpine have made use of this to create
a number of starter files to help you in your first game creation.)
7.8
Other new features
7.8
Other features include the ability to detect whether an ARM3 processor
is fitted. This will allow you to add to the graphics or action if the
computer running the game is capable of doing so. You now have the
option to create user events. This could be an event that is triggered,
say, after 5 minutes if you don’t complete a particular level or puzzle.
7.8
The games you create can be encoded, so that no one else can hack into
them even if they have a copy of Creator 2.
7.8
Installation
7.8
On my computer − a 410/1 with 4Mb ram, 40Mb hard disc, multisync
monitor, RISC OS 3.1 and an ARM2 − I simply dragged the contents of each
disc to their own sub-directory in a Creator 2 working directory. In
total this comes to 3,090,806 bytes because the example games are
compressed onto the floppy discs.
7.8
The manual
7.8
Before running the software, I began to read the manual and was pleased
to find a tutorial section. This takes you through developing a simple
one-screen platform game. The files for this tutorial are supplied in a
tutorials directory: variable, event and object lists, plus all the
necessary sprite files. Having said this, I suggest that you read all of
the manual first so that you understand what is happening in the
tutorial.
7.8
Creator 2 menus
7.8
Creator 2 installs itself on the right of the iconbar but clicking
<select> or <adjust> on the icon does nothing, because all operations
are from the main menu. This contains seven items in addition to the
usual Information and Quit: design, show sprites, show objects, game
options, print options, save game and save sprites. The design option
leads to a submenu where you do most of the game design work.
7.8
Screen & map editors
7.8
This is where you lay out the screens using the sprites that you have
created in Paint or whatever. After this, you lay out the maps on top of
the screens which involves defining where your character can and cannot
go, e.g. floors, doors, walls, ladders. The next stage is to define the
objects and animation in the game. If it is a scrolling game like
Invaders, you can also add waves of alien attacks or, if it is like
Repton, you can add paths.
7.8
Path editor
7.8
Paths are defined very much like drawfiles. You make the path up from
straight lines in the path editor and, while you are editing, you can
have the backdrop showing to enable you to go around objects correctly.
At the end of the path sequence, it will automatically repeat unless you
tell it otherwise, by using the event editor, where an event will then
occur for you to act upon.
7.8
Wave editor
7.8
At its simplest level, the wave editor allows the object editor and
event editor to deal with multiple objects as if they were one object.
This allows large attack waves to be built up quickly and controlled
easily.
7.8
Event editor
7.8
One of the most important parts is the event-handling editor which
allows you to decide what happens when you are shot or when a particular
key is pressed. The screenshot overleaf shows part of the event list for
the Z key. Most of the event lists are multiple IF statements. The list
shows what to do if <Z> is pressed, lines 1 to 3 in this screenshot are
for what happens if <Z> is pressed when your character has its back to
you: you replace on screen heroback with the animated sequence hero turn
left, so all you have to do is create the correct IF statements for the
possible actions of each particular key.
7.8
This is probably the hardest part of the software even though it has
been made as simple as possible. With most actions available from menus
or icon selections, you can even paste words from menus to help reduce
the amount of keyboard work. Although you don’t need to know how to
program a computer, an understanding of some of the concepts will help
you to produce better event-handling routines.
7.8
Object editor
7.8
Closely tied in with the Event editor is the Object editor. This is
where you create the animated sequences such as walking, turning,
climbing, etc. For this, you use the sprites that you have created. For
instance turning to the left may have three sprites to animate it as
shown opposite.
7.8
Each animation sequence can have up to twelve separate frames and each
object can be placed on different levels of the screen. This could allow
you to implement parallax scrolling. With each object, you set certain
parameters such as collision detection, invisibility and how long this
animation will take (in “ticks” each tick is 1 screen refresh).
7.8
Printouts
7.8
A very useful option on the main menu is the print option which lets you
print out all or part of the important game information such as event
lists, path details, sound details, etc. All you do is set the options
you want and then save the game to the printer driver. Unfortunately,
you cannot save this information into Edit as this option only works
with the printer driver.
7.8
Conclusion
7.8
The software is simple and easy to use and I don’t think that Alpine
could make it much easier to create a game. However, games creation is
intrinsically difficult and so a lot of planning is required before you
can start to use this software successfully.
7.8
On the whole, the software is fast and efficient, and the results are
only really limited by your imagination and personal capabilities. So,
if you have ever wanted to create your own games but you cannot program
your computer, this software is for you. Alpine Software say that there
are no royalties to pay and you are free to distribute the games that
you create freely or for money. All they ask is that you acknowledge
Alpine Software and the use of the Creator 2 software.
7.8
Creator 2 is produced by Alpine Software at £49 plus £1.50 p&p or £55
through Archive. Users of Creator 1 can upgrade from version 1 direct
from Alpine Software at £20 +VAT.  A
7.8
Chemistry by PTW Software
7.8
John Oversby
7.8
The disc contains an application, !Chemistry, a demonstration version of
!Chemistry, a screen font which is used by the application in place of
Acorn’s system font, some drawfiles of chemistry apparatus and
documentation in the form of both Impression files and text files.
7.8
The !Chemistry application loads onto the iconbar and appears as a
Periodic Table on the screen.
7.8
Selecting an element brings up information about that element, partly in
graphical format. This information is static but the numerical part can
be rounded up to the whole number, if desired. I had some difficulties
in appreciating the value of this presentation, apart from the
attraction of colour. It is not possible to have more than one element
displayed at once, so comparisons are difficult. Searching of the
database other than selecting via the Periodic Table is impossible which
is rather limiting. Graphical analysis of numerical data is not provided
and there is no provision for output to other applications. It is also
not possible to edit the database or to alter the layout of the
presentation. I felt that, compared with other databases, the
constraints outweighed its usefulness.
7.8
Other facilities are also available from a sub-menu, such as a
reactivity series.
7.8
A limited number of compounds are also provided from a sub-menu.
7.8
The Impression files contain objective questions related to the
properties of metals and their compounds, supplemented by diagrams. The
drawfiles contain hand-drawn labelled pictures of simple chemical
apparatus.
7.8
Conclusion
7.8
With the increasing availability of hyper-databases (e.g. Genesis and
Magpie) and the opportunities for the use of animations and graphics in
searchable databases, this package has the feel of something a little
outdated. CD-ROMs are finding their way into schools at a rapid pace and
I would like see schools use their interactive facilities rather than a
more passive package.
7.8
Chemistry costs £15 inclusive from PTW Software.  A
7.8
PTW say that they have upgraded Chemistry by including Ovation files as
well and Impression and ASCII files. The price remains the same and
existing users can upgrade by sending PTW a disc and quoting their
serial number. Ed.
7.8
ArtWorks Made Easy
7.8
Christopher Jarman
7.8
ArtWorks Made Easy is a book by Roger Amos, published by Dabs Press.
7.8
Being new to computers, as well as to Impression and ArtWorks, I am just
the chap for whom anything labelled ‘...made easy’ was designed.
Basically, my technology is that of the Brownie box camera but don’t get
me wrong, I love my A4000. Indeed, since getting it, my wife has not
seen me for most of the daylight hours in the last nine months. This
means that I have been on a really steep “learning curve” and am still
novice enough to know how it feels to be faced with incomprehensible
instructions. To me, a WIMP is still a playground insult, and anti-
aliasing is probably some devious way of dodging the Child Support
agency.
7.8
A hard act to follow
7.8
I’ve had ArtWorks itself now for about four months, and I find it very
stimulating. It comes with one of the best User Manuals of all the
programs I have looked at, so any further book for ArtWorks has quite a
hard act to follow. Furthermore, there is a “Rough Guide to ArtWorks”
included with the package which is quite enough to get the average wimp
well started!
7.8
This new Guide is a handy paperback of 269 pages, well bound with a nice
glossy cover. How useful was it to someone like me who has played about
considerably with Artworks and read the User Manual and rough Guide
pretty thoroughly? Well, the answer is, very useful indeed. Roger Amos
has expanded almost every aspect of the manual with simply-written
theories of lines, shapes, colour handling and printing. This is the
sort of detail not found in the manual and which, after a few weeks of
experimenting, some users would appreciate. I certainly did.
7.8
After describing the basic installation, the author goes on to give, in
Chapter 3, a good overview of the major attributes of Artworks. This
also makes for a useful reminder if you have not used it for a month or
so. Chapter 4, on Lines and Shapes, goes into a lot of practical
details, explaining some functions which I did not get from my reading
of the manual or from three months playing about on the screen, for
example, the difference between ‘Duplicate’ and ‘Clone’. Also, the
various uses of <alt>, <shift> and <control> while using <select>. Going
on to Chapter 5, Colour Handling, I learned many new details, all
explained in clear, concise English. Both in this chapter and in Chapter
7, Text Handling, the advice and hints and tips about the use of the
blending tool were extremely helpful. In fact, there is a chapter near
the end called Hints and Tips which is entertaining and pertinent.
7.8
Not glossy enough?
7.8
Having invested in the Dabhand Guide to Impression II, I did wonder why
this Guide to Artworks seemed so much smaller for the same price. I
spoke to the publishers who pointed out that the Impression Guide had
very generous margins and far fewer words to a page. Readers, it would
seem, prefer the earlier style of smaller books with more words to a
page, so “ArtWorks Made Easy” has gone back to that style. I was not
entirely convinced, as it seems to me that a glossy art package like
Artworks needs a very glossy publication to do it justice. Also, I have
to say that the illustrations, which are all black and white, are not up
to the excellent standard of the text. Some are almost incomprehensible.
7.8
Conclusion
7.8
This is a well-written volume of real help to users of Artworks. I found
the contents re-awakened my interest in a large number of important
attributes of the package, which I had quickly overlooked in only three
or four months of use. It contains a good number of hints and tips which
may be well-known to professional users but which, for relative
beginners, must be invaluable. It is a genuine follow up of what is
still a very good in-house user’s guide, because it expands the
knowledge and, in some cases, the theory which the original guide does
not attempt to cover.
7.8
I sincerely hope that any subsequent reprints will have completely re-
vamped illustrations with possibly at least one full colour page or a
disc to go with it. Having said that, it will remain by my side all the
time I am using Artworks in future!
7.8
Artworks Made Easy by Roger Amos is published by Dabs Press October
1993, ISBN 1 870336 84 4, price £14.95 (£15 inc p&p through Archive).  A
7.8
Archimedes Games Maker’s Manual
7.8
Dave Floyd
7.8
Archimedes Games Maker’s Manual, written by Terry Blunt and published by
Sigma Press at £14.95, is a 272-page programming tutorial aimed at users
who wish to write games for the Archimedes. Some knowledge of Basic V is
assumed by the author and the preface to the book suggests using the BBC
Basic Guide in conjunction with the text. A disc containing the program
listings is available separately, if required.
7.8
Layout
7.8
The book is produced in perfect bound format, which is not ideal for any
publication containing listings to be typed in, as it is rather
difficult to keep the pages open at the required place. Spiral binding
would have been a far more user-friendly option. The text itself is
written in a chatty style which I found very easy to get on with and
comprehend. It is split into ten separate sections plus an appendix at
the back. Contents and index sections are also included to allow easy
access to specific areas of interest. The sections themselves follow a
logical format, from planning, through static and moving graphics, 3D
imagery and sound before reaching chapters that deal with aspects
relating to arcade, role play and strategy styles of game. The final
chapter deals with the use of ARM code in games.
7.8
In use
7.8
One of the things that impressed me with this book was the amount of
space given to programming techniques and the prior planning necessary
before beginning coding. Much of the first three chapters deals with
these subjects which, although relevant to all forms of programming, are
treated more as an afterthought by many tutorials. The example listings
throughout the book are, for the most part, fairly short, and illustrate
the basic ideas while encouraging experimentation − a good way to learn
in my experience.
7.8
The chapter on static graphics starts with a very basic example then
elaborates slowly to take in different methods of background patterns,
sprites, shadow text, plinths and the use of outline fonts. Mention is
made of the possibility of using drawfiles as backgrounds but the book
does not attempt to address this. I would have liked to have seen an
extra chapter on the use of drawfiles, explaining their format, but
realise that it is a complex area and is possibly beyond the scope of
the book, as stated.
7.8
Less forgivable, is the lack of a detailed description of how the sprite
system works. Sprites make up an integral part of any game, so to gloss
over the subject and give advice to examine the Programmers Reference
Manual for more detail is not enough in my view. I would doubt that many
people within the target readership already own the PRM and the expense
would deter many at such an early stage in their programming
development. Some sprite calls are listed in the appendix at the back of
the book but far more detail should have been used within these pages.
7.8
The section on moving graphics explains the difference between general
movement and animation, often misunderstood by beginners. Movement and
animation techniques are explained followed by various methods of
collision detection along with hardware and software scrolling of
screens. The following chapter examines background layers and the use of
scaling and perspective, all of which will give your game a more
professional look and feel. The remainder of this chapter is given over
to sound and a vast listing that enables you to create voices as sound
modules. This is the longest program in the book, and I feel that most
people would consider the purchase of the disc a better option than
typing in the eighteen pages of code that it comprises. The omission of
any mention of the use of soundtracker files for background music rather
surprised me, and I felt they should have been mentioned along with the
disadvantages and advantages of their use.
7.8
The book then takes each type of game: arcade, simulation, adventure,
etc, and concentrates on techniques that can be used for their
implementation. Whatever type of game you are interested in writing, it
would be well worth reading all of these sections as much of the
information contained could be used in other types of game.
7.8
The final chapter deals with ARM code and will only realistically be of
use to those who are learning Archimedes assembler or who already have a
working knowledge of it. For professional games, however, ARM code can
be essential so its inclusion is fully justified here.
7.8
Conclusions
7.8
If you are interested in programming games on your Archimedes then there
is really no competition on the market. This book could also be useful
for somebody learning Basic by giving them a goal to aim for and a
purpose for which to exercise their newly learned skills. Even seasoned
programmers could find things of use to them within these pages in the
way of style and design, and there are nuggets of information that keep
cropping up unexpectedly, leaving you feeling, “That’s obvious. Why
didn’t I think of it!” I can certainly recommend The Archimedes Game
Makers Manual. What it does, it does well. It is only what it avoids
doing that makes this a points decision rather than a straight knockout.
7.8
The Archimedes Game Makers Manual is available through Archive at £15
inclusive of p&p.  A
7.8
Soapbox
7.8
Richard Rymarz
7.8
Soapbox is quite a specialist piece of software. It is written by Xavier
Educational Software Ltd ,more of whom later. It comes on five discs
housed in a plastic box and there is a comprehensive manual which is
fairly easy to understand. The software is protected by a coding system
− a telephone call to Xavier furnishes a key number which unlocks the
program and allows it to be used on hard disc and backup copies to be
made.
7.8
The package
7.8
Soapbox is specifically designed to help with the spelling of double
letters in certain words. It uses sampled speech to enunciate the
vowels, consonants and words provided in a series of graded lists. It
emphasises the relationship between the spelling pattern and the vowel
sound. Each word is pronounced and contrasts are made between short and
long vowel sounds. There are two parts to the program. The tutor section
allows a word to be learned by looking at its visual shape and then
listening as a sequence of letter names. Then there is a test where the
computer dictates words to be typed in. There is also a simple game
involving clicking on towns in the British Isles. The computer allocates
a word to each town which then has to be spelt. A help option repeats
the word if difficulties occur. Since sampled sound is used, the program
takes up over 3½ Mb of storage space.
7.8
History
7.8
Xavier Educational Software Ltd are located within the dyslexia unit of
Bangor University, where the Head of Faculty has been involved in
dyslexia research for more than 30 years. Soapbox originated on the old
BBC Micro once formed part of the ‘Bangor Dyslexia System’. It is the
first part of a suite of programs designed for those with dyslexia
problems and is specifically targeted at 12 to 15 year olds, although
one of the designers explained to me that it is used with children as
young as 6 and 7 as well as in some prisons. Since ‘Soapbox’, two other
programs ‘AlphaSound’ and ‘Sound and Rhythm’ have been published both
aimed at specific areas of Special Educational Needs and another dealing
with ‘magic e’ is due soon. There are plans to port all the programs
over to Mac and PC formats.
7.8
The program
7.8
Having clicked on !Soapbox, a menu panel opens where the word list is
entered. Other options are available including switching off the
internal speaker if headphones are used, the volume control, the
pronunciation speed and whether highlights are used. The program runs in
mode 12 and takes over the whole screen. Pressing <escape> returns the
user back to the desktop but still in mode 12 − very irritating. A
rather attractive screen is presented where a word sits in the middle
with four word shapes around it. Dragging the word into the correct box
results in it being spoken. A second screen appears where the word is
spelt and each letter is pronounced. Successful completion results in
the map game if originally selected.
7.8
Customisation
7.8
If the user has access to an Oak Recorder or Clare’s Armadeus Sound
Sampler, user-defined words can be added. The manual has clear
instruction on how to do so and to convert the samples to Soapbox
format. Hints and tips are offered and, if there are any real problems,
Xavier will be only too happy to help out. I have neither samplers, so I
could not test this option but the man from Bangor assured me it was
quite easy.
7.8
Conclusions
7.8
Any results from using Soapbox are going to be long term and difficult
to gauge. I cannot really say much about the efficacy of this program
but since it was devised by experts in the field of dyslexia,
prospective users should be convinced that research points to this kind
of program working. As a reviewer of this quite specialist software, I
can only suggest a possible way forward for those who may be looking for
help in this area. I was impressed by the person I spoke to at Bangor
University. He indicated that the software worked well and that it was
based on a tried and trusted program refined over many years. I would
like to get my hands on a sampler and create word lists for my primary
school children. Maybe this year’s school budget will run to it.
7.8
Soapbox from Xavier Educational Software Ltd costs £35 +VAT.  A
7.8
Time Detectives − The Victorians
7.8
Paul Cross
7.8
Time Detectives − The Victorians is written by Simon Hosler who also
wrote the award-winning program ‘Crystal Rainforest’. It is an adventure
game that takes you back in time to the Victorian Era. The program is
published by Sherston Software who have a long line of excellent
programs. This one will cost you £39.95 +VAT or £44 inclusive from
Archive, and consists of four discs plus a number of booklets,
information sheets and posters.
7.8
The purpose of the game
7.8
The game is designed for use by children at school but would be equally
suitable, and fun, to play at home. It is designed to stimulate the
children’s interest in the Victorian period. This will support National
Curriculum History, key stage 2, core study unit 3.
7.8
The aim of the game
7.8
When you load the program (disc 1) a magnifying glass icon − detective
style − appears on the iconbar. When you start the game, you are in the
sleepy seaside town of Heston. Unfamiliar objects have been appearing
out of thin air while others have equally suddenly disappeared. As
reporters on the local newspaper, and using your investigative skills,
you set out in search of their story. The trail starts with three
missing children...  If I were to tell you more it would spoil the
adventure!
7.8
Using the software
7.8
The program can be run from discs, four in all, but this will require
some disc-swapping while the game is in progress. It is also important
to install the !Fonts directory supplied on the start up disc as the
program uses Sherston’s Tabloid font as an essential part of the
program.
7.8
If available, the program is best installed on a hard disc. A simple
procedure of copying over the !Victorian applications from all four
discs to a directory on your hard disc. They will combine to form one
application. It is also important to add the Tabloid font to your !Fonts
directly and ensure it is installed. You will still need Disc 1 in the
disc drive to start up the game, unless you have a site licence (the
cost of which is twice the cost of a stand-alone version).
7.8
When you have started the program, the teacher has control of the setup
of the game by clicking <select> on the setup option from the menu of
the Victorians icon on the iconbar. You can then control the length of
the game, where you start, saving the current position and changing the
volume. The last is a very useful option when working in a busy
classroom!
7.8
Once the game has started, the controls are simple for the children to
use and need little, if any, explanation. It is important to ensure that
the children consider their approach to the problems and think through
their moves before pressing buttons. These skills are essential to the
success of the game and, for that matter, many other things they do both
at school and at home!
7.8
The game itself
7.8
The screen scrolls to allow you to move around the map, and also has
interactive areas where, by clicking <select>, you find out more
information or identify where you are and start to solve the challenges
and puzzles. The activities are wide-ranging in subject and include
timelines, money, copperplate handwriting, proverbs, dolls houses, to
name but a few. The graphics are colourful and the sound effects good
and all this adds up to an excellent package which proves to be both
educational and fun.
7.8
I tried it with a class of 11 year old children and they maintained
their concentration over the period of time they had to play the game
and wanted to go back and finish the adventure. It stimulated further
activity away from the computer, researching and following up some of
the ideas they had seen in the game. To this end, Sherston include a
booklet that identifies many subject areas and lists ideas for each as
well as giving information about books, places to visit and schemes of
work.
7.8
Conclusion
7.8
This is a program of quality which is a hit with the children while
being educationally sound. It stimulates interest in the subject
‘History’ and will prove a useful resource in any classroom where ‘The
Victorians’ is a cross-curricular theme.  A
7.8