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1995-02-16
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• A4 paper trays − We can now get hold of spare A4 paper trays for the
Laser Direct (Qume) at £66, the Laser Direct Hi-Res (Canon LBP8) at £54
and the Canon LBP4 at £57. It makes life much easier not to have to keep
taking headed note paper and plain paper in and out of paper trays −
just pull out one tray and replace it with another. This includes
putting A5 paper in an A4 paper tray which is explained in the Hints &
Tips on page 8.
4.10
• A4 flatbed scanner GT-4000 − Clares have produced an interface and
software support to run an Epson GT4000 from an Archimedes computer. The
main features are: 50 to 400 d.p.i., 24 bit colour, 256 grey scales, max
size 214 x 295 mm, uses serial and bi-directional Centronics interface,
full RISC-OS application. The prices are £1799 +VAT for the full system
or £715 + VAT for the software and interface board if you already have
the GT4000 scanner. (£1955 and £660 respectively through Archive.)
4.10
• A3000 Special Access − Acorn are now providing a package based on the
A3000 with Special Needs users in mind. It consists of an A3000 upgraded
with serial port and Morley User/Analogue ports, a disc of utilities to
facilitate access to the computer for physically disabled users and
people with visual impairment, Special Needs overview booklet and a copy
of the Special Needs Computing Handbook. You can buy it without a
monitor (£679 +VAT) or with an Acorn monitor and a PRES stand (which
allows the computer to move about independently of the stand) for £899
+VAT. There is a special price for registered charities or those who are
registered disabled − £695 and £953.50 respectively including VAT.
Applications forms for these special prices should be available for your
local dealer − Archive also has forms and can supply these SA packs.
4.10
• Arc Recorder − Oak Solutions have produced a very cheap system for
sound sampling (£29.95 +VAT or £33 through Archive). It consists of a
hand held condenser microphone linked to the computer via the printer
port(!) and software that generates samples in Armadeus file format. It
is also designed to link in with Genesis II and comes with a support
module to allow samples to be used within Genesis applications.
4.10
• ARCticulate − The current spate of Archimedes speech generators
continues.. 4th Dimension have produced an “animated speech synthesiser”
which includes, as well as voices, four faces that speak the words! It
can read text files and word processor documents and can be used within
your own programs. £24.95 from 4th Dimension or £23 through Archive.
4.10
• ARM3 price drop − There seems to be a bit of price war going on with
ARM3’s and so we’ve been able to bring down the price of the Aleph One
ARM3 to £420 inc VAT.
4.10
• Careware Nº13 − We have put Jonathan Marten’s improved Draw program,
!DrawPlus which was reviewed last month, page 19, as the major item on
Careware 13. We have made it a DTP type disc by adding the latest
versions of !CGM −>Draw (v2.1) and !Translator (v6.45) and two utilities
to convert the other way: !DrwCgm (v1.0) which converts Draw files to
CGM files and !Creator (v1.13) which converts sprite files into GIF,
TIFF, AIM, PBM files. There is also some Draw clip art: under the
heading of biology are 4 week old & 8 week old embryos, digestive
system, ear, paramecium, respiratory system, resuscitation, teeth; under
the heading of people are cobbler, eskimo, footballer, girl reading,
girl riding, magician, painter, singer; and then the rest... bed and
breakfast, house, King George V battleship, long ship, Pink Panther,
snowman, tree.
4.10
• ClassROM is a new networking product from Oak Solutions. Anyone trying
to run an Econet system with Archimedes computers will realise the
problem of a class full of pupils trying to load, say, Impression all at
the same time. Oak Solutions’ solution(!) is to provide a box to attach
to each, or as many as possible, of the Archimedes on the network. This
box looks, to the user, like a read-only ROM. In fact, it is a 20M (or
bigger if you prefer!) SCSI hard drive which can only be read by them
but which can be written to, via the Econet, using special software
which, presumably, only the network manager would have access to. You
can use this software to put whatever files and applications you want
onto whichever stations you want. So, while the kids are out of the way,
you could load up various applications onto different stations so that
they would be ready at the start of the day for the pupils to use. The
pupils would save their data either on their own floppies or via the
Econet on the file-server. There is no limit to the number of stations
on the network that can have a ClassROM installed and so as you expand
(well, as money becomes available) you could add ClassROM’s to more and
more of the Archimedes so that fewer stations would have to load their
applications via the network. Prices are £150 (+VAT) for the management
software plus £344 for each 20M classROM unit or £445 for the 45M
version. Archive prices (inc VAT) are £160, £375 and £485 respectively.
4.10
• Creator − Alpine Software have produced a program to enable you to
create your own arcade game. It comes with an object designer, a screen
designer, a path designer, an event manager and a run-time system. You
also get a collection of sprites and sound samples to incorporate in
your own games. The price is £38.95 from Alpine Software or £36 through
Archive.
4.10
• Digital Storage Oscilloscope − Armadillo Systems Ltd have produced a
digital storage oscilloscope using the Archimedes to do the capture,
processing and display of the data. It comes in single and dual input
formats priced at £323.10 and £445.50 +VAT respectively. The inputs are
1Mohm, 30 pF, 30MHz, 5V to 10mV with a resolution of 256 steps on
channel 1 and 128 on channel 2. This system makes good use of the
processing power of the Archimedes to give a range of ways of interpret
ing and displaying the data collected.
4.10
• Fine Racer − Race your buggy around various circuits avoiding various
obstacles, picking up various bonus points which can be converted into
things to upgrade your car provided you come in the first three in the
race itself. Oh, and watch out for Mad Max who drives like a maniac.
Produced by Eterna in France and marketed in this country by Vector
Services. Price £19.95 inc VAT.
4.10
• Imagine is not just another art pack − Topologika refer to their new
product as a design pack because it has applications right across the
curriculum. It has a twin-screen facility and built-in maths facilities
and an on-line help facility. The price is £39.95 inc VAT or £37 through
Archive. Separately available are packs of images for £9.95 +VAT each
including Pirates, Victorians and Romans.
4.10
• Impression Business Supplement − Computer Concepts have produced a set
of utilities which make Impression II into a powerful business/profes
sional DTP system. The supplement includes Expression-PS (also available
separately), a mail-merge utility, a sort utility for use with the merge
program plus four loader modules: RTF (as used with Microsoft Word on PC
and Mac), WordPerfect, PipeDream and WordStar. The price is £49 +VAT or
£53 through Archive.
4.10
• MiG29 − a new flight simulator from the originators of Interdictor −
SIMIS. For full details of this, see the review on page 24. The price is
£40.85 inc VAT or £38 through Archive.
4.10
• New PC Emulator is (almost!) here! − A press release of 19/6/91
confidently predicted the release of the new PC Emulator on 21st June.
It’s not actually available yet as I write (2/7/91) but it should be in
“about three weeks”. Version 1.6 of the emulator allows you to return to
your desktop and find it intact and, on machines with 2M or more, it can
run concurrently with RISC-OS within the multi-tasking environment. DOS
files can be accessed directly from RISC-OS and it provides “full CD-ROM
support via CDFS and MSCD extensions”. It is supplied with MS-DOS 3.3
including a mouse driver and has an emulation of the Intel 8087 maths
co-processor which increases floating point calculations by a factor of
fourteen. The emulator runs in CGA, EGA or MDA graphics modes with
partial support for VGA for software, such as Windows 3, which accesses
the video hardware directly. The price is the same as the old emulator,
£99 plus VAT or £96 through Archive, and there is an upgrade for
existing users for £29 (+VAT presumably) and as soon as we know how you
can get the upgrade, we will let you know. (I suggest you check the back
of the Price List which is printed later than the magazine itself.) (See
the screenshot below.)
4.10
• PrimeArt is Minerva’s new 256 colour art package aimed at primary and
special needs children. Amongst other things, it allows sprites to be
pasted into a picture, has tailorable menus and allows text of any
available font to be used. The cost is £79.95 +VAT or £87 through
Archive.
4.10
• Removable drive prices down again − This time it’s the Atomwide
removable drive with the high power fans − they are now down to £555 inc
VAT or £755 with an Oak podule.
4.10
• Rhapsody II is available now for £61.95 inc VAT (or £57 through
Archive) and there is an upgrade through Clares for £15.50 inc VAT −
just send the original disc back (not the packing) to Clares. The main
extra features of Rhapsody II are: drag notes from panels onto the
score, MIDI thru and MIDI beat added, multiple MIDI ports supported,
MIDI program changes possible within the score, capture notes in step
time directly onto stave, octave transposition, transcribe triplets,
block re-tail, improved sprites for better printout, formatted scores
can be exported in Draw format to a new program called ScoreDraw which
will allow professional quality printouts. (ScoreDraw will be available
“later this year”.)
4.10
• Swedish Impression − If you want a Swedish version of Impression 2.1,
contact Information Technology Services, Sjötullsg. 3, 602 27
Norrköping, Sweden (11−127758, fax 11−126545). Most programs on the
Applications Discs are also available in Swedish, as is PipeDream 3.
4.10
• Wonderland is an impressive new adventure game occupying four floppies
(which can be loaded onto hard disc). It is based on Alice in Wonderland
and runs in its own (non-RISC-OS) window environment. It costs £32
through Archive.
4.10
• UltraSonic Sound System − Alpine Software claim this to be the only
fully RISC-OS compliant, multi-tasking sound and music system. It
produces music files that are compatible with Creator, their new Arcade
Games Designer − see overleaf. It comes with an application to convert
samples from various formats as well as Soundtracker files into its own
format. It also comes with a PD playback application to play UltraSonic
files and a disc of almost 150 sampled instrument sounds. The price is
£30 from Alpine Software or £28 through Archive.
4.10