Archive Magazine CD 1995/Archive Magazine CD 1995.iso/text/products/volume_06/issue_11

Text File | 1995-02-16 | 19KB | 327 lines

Products Available
6.11
•    10 Out of 10 Maths (Algebra) is the second maths pack from Triple R,
the educational arm of Fourth Dimension. This package covers patterns,
sequences, formulae, graphs, equations, inequalities and symbols. It
covers Curriculum Attainment Target 3 (Algebra) and has material and
levels suitable for children aged 6 to 16 on Key Stages 1 to 4. The
price is £25.95 from Fourth Dimension or £24 through Archive.
6.11
•    £50 off the Pocket Book price − During the summer, Acorn are offering
£50 off the price of the Pocket Book. So you can buy a Pocket Book from
Archive for just £200. The educational package consisting of eleven
Pocket Books plus an A-Link is £1699.50 +VAT. (£1990 inc VAT through
Archive.) Both these offers last until 30th September. What is more,
Acorn have created the ‘missing link’! The almost universal comment
about the Pocket Book is “Why no diary?!” and so...
6.11
•    Acorn Schedule is a new application on SSD ROM for the Pocket Book. It
includes a diary, personal organiser, calendar and timetable. The normal
price will be £49.95 inc VAT but there is a special introductory price
of £19.95 (£19 through Archive) until 30th September.
6.11
•    !AppFS is a network application which speeds up the delivery of
applications to the users. A site licence costs £100 +VAT from Angelsoft
Educational although it is going up to £130 +VAT on 1st September.
6.11
•    Astro upgrade − Topologika have released version 2 of Astro. This is a
set of interactive programs for exploring Earth in Space, i.e. it deals
with the solar system, seasons, the moon, comets, spacecraft, etc. Astro
2 costs £37.50 +VAT including p&p or £41 through Archive. The upgrade
from 1 to 2 costs £8.50 +VAT including p&p from Topologika.
6.11
•    CD special prices − Cumana are offering CDs at special prices up to
the end of December 1993. Their World of Number discs aimed at Key
Stages 3 & 4 are all £59 +VAT + carriage each (£66 through Archive):
Number Games & Short Tasks, Perspectives, Picture Gallery and Who Stole
the Decimal Point? The four-disc set of Creepy Crawlies, Dictionary of
the Living World, Grooves and Image Warehouse is £149 +VAT + carriage
(£164 through Archive) and the Space Encyclopedia is £39 +VAT + carriage
(£44 through Archive).
6.11
•    Champions is a games compilation package from Krisalis. It consists of
World Class Leader Board (golf), Manchester United, World Championship
Squash and World Championship Boxing Manager. This compilation costs
£29.99 from Krisalis or £28 through Archive.
6.11
•    ColourBurst from State Machine is a full CCIR PAL, television and
video recorder compatible graphics card. A new facility of the
ColourBurst is the ability to display a full interlaced overscan TV
mode. This is double the vertical TV resolution currently attainable
with the Archimedes. ColourBurst could therefore be very useful where
access to a large TV type monitor is available.
6.11
ColourBurst provides all of the facilities of the G16 while adding:
larger desktop modes, larger ArtWorks and TrueView preview modes (with
1Mb of on-board memory the desktop can be previewed in up to 1152×848 in
256 colours and ArtWorks can use the 800×600 16 bit per pixel modes);
direct recording to video; on-line broadcasting in 256 colours at
768×576 and other resolutions (the optional PAL genlock expansion allows
the ColourBurst to be synchronised to any external RGB, PAL or S-Video
source); an on-board expansion system to allow various options to be
added without taking up any more expansion slots. The options to be
available during July include: A simple sync genlock, an RGB bandwidth
limiter, a composite PAL and S-Video encoder, a full PAL genlock
expansion and an internal RGB video switch for the A540 and A5000.
6.11
ColourBurst costs £475 including VAT & carriage or £440 through Archive.
6.11
•    Demon’s Lair − This is Fourth Dimension’s new isometric arcade
adventure. A friendly dragon has been chained up by an evil demon and
you and your people are being terrorised by all sorts of nasties. Your
job is to destroy the demon and free the people before their supply of
food runs out. Demon’s Lair is £25.95 from Fourth Dimension or £24
through Archive.
6.11
•    DrawAid − This application, which allows you to create drawfiles from
within Basic programs (reviewed in Archive 5.1 p57) has now been
upgraded to version 2. The new version has been speeded up and now
allows the use of outline fonts. It is fully multitasking on RISC OS 3.1
and can produce multiple drawfiles from a single Basic program. Further
enhancements include additional drawing procedures, procedures to handle
sprites and to input data from CSV files. Extended colour facilities
have also been added allowing definition of any of 16 million colours in
the drawfile. The application comes with fifty varied examples ranging
over topics such as barcode production, gear wheel drawing and the
plotting of mathematical functions.
6.11
Carvic Manufacturing have increased the price from £10 to £12(!) (no
VAT) It seems to be excellent value at that price. DrawAid 1 users can
receive a complete new package of DrawAid 2 by returning their master
disc plus £6 to Carvic.
6.11
•    Eizo monitor prices rising again − We have just been told by Eizo UK
that the prices of their monitors are going up again on 1st August
although they don’t say by how much. So if you are thinking of buying an
Eizo monitor, I suggest you get on the phone to Norwich Computer
Services a.s.a.p.
6.11
•    Electronics magazine database − M. Kay has produced a set of ArcScan
data files covering four electronics magazines for the three years Jan
1990 to Dec 1992. This covers Practical Electronics, Everyday
Electronics, Maplin Electronics and Everyday with Practical Electronics.
Send a cheque for £5 to Mike Kay, 69 Cobnar Road, Woodseats, Sheffield,
S8 8QD.
6.11
•    Ethernet interfaces − Risc Developments’ Ethernet cards are all now
available. They are doing an A3000 mini-podule version for 10base2 (£139
+VAT) and an A5000 half-width podule (£139 +VAT) which also has a
connector for 10base5. There are also internal Ethernet interfaces
(10base2) for the A3020/4000 so that the minipodule slot is still free
for other purposes (£159 +VAT). If you are looking at using 10baseT,
twisted pair Ethernet, Risc Developments have a standard podule version
(A5000 etc) which is also £139 +VAT.
6.11
•    Eureka 2 is now available. It is said to have “over 100 enhancements
and exciting improvements over the first release”. All registered users
will receive a free upgrade and the price remains at £119 + VAT or £130
through Archive. When Chris Johnson gets his upgrade copy, I expect he
will be able to fill us in with a few details.
6.11
•    Floating point accelerator − At long last, the FPA is available and in
stock at Norwich Computer Services. The price is £99 +VAT or £107
through Archive. It can be fitted as standard into A5000s but the only
other users who can take advantage of it at the moment are owners of
ARM3 upgrades that have an FPA socket on them and owners of the later
issue A540s which have an FPA socket on the processor card. Owners of
older A540s (like me) can get a a free upgrade done by “your local Acorn
dealer” (good news!) but the upgrade board won’t be available until the
autumn (bad news!). Brian Cowan has done some initial tests on the FPA
in his Hardware Column on page 18 and made some technical comments about
it. Also, if you want more technical information, you can get a 62-page
data booklet through Vector Services (Acorn Direct) in Wellingborough
for £10 inclusive.
6.11
•    Gothic and Medieval Fonts and Decoration − The Datafile have released
a three-disc set of fonts and artwork. It consists of five outline fonts
plus some Draw fonts plus some Draw clipart for decoration purposes. The
pack costs £31.50 inclusive from Datafile.
6.11
•    HP Deskjet 1200C − (I’ll try to get it right this month...) Hewlett
Packard have just released an A4 (NOT A3!) colour inkjet printer. The
Archive price is £1390 inclusive. The advantage over the 550C is that it
runs at roughly twice the speed and offers a 600×300 dpi enhanced mode.
It has 2M RAM as standard, upgradable to 26Mb! It is also fully Laserjet
AND PostScript (Apple) compatible − the parallel Centronics interface is
standard but others are available as options. For Archimedes use, you
would be well advised to run it on RISC OS 3.1 and buy an Ace PROdriver
(£44) or the new TurboDriver (£53 including a printer cable) when it is
available.
6.11
•    Imagine upgrade − Topologika have released version 2 of their art and
maths pack, Imagine. Imagine 2 has three gallery discs and includes a
free site licence. It costs £47.50 +VAT including p&p or £51 through
Archive. The upgrade from 1 to 2 costs £11 + VAT including p&p from
Topologika.
6.11
•    Krisalis Collection is an arcade games compilation package from
Krisalis. It consists of Mad Professor Mariarti, Revelation, Terramex
and PipeMania. This compilation costs £29.99 from Krisalis or £28
through Archive.
6.11
•    Letters is an educational package from Oak Solutions aimed at Key
Stage 1 English. It provides a fun way for children to learn their
alphabet. It costs £45 + p&p +VAT from Oak Solutions.
6.11
•    Midi / User / Analogue interfaces − Morley Electronics have introduced
some new cards which provide a Midi interface as well as the user and
analogue ports. They are still selling their user/analogue card
(minipodule) for A3000 series computers (£49 +VAT or £53 through
Archive) but now they have a minipodule that has Midi (in, out and
through) as well as user and analogue (£57 +VAT or £62 through Archive).
If you want a standard podule version, the analogue/user port is one
half-width podule (£49 +VAT or £53 through Archive) and the Midi add-on
for it (£35 +VAT or £38 through Archive) is a separate half-width podule
linked by a cable. It can be placed above or by the side of the other
podule for flexibility.
6.11
•    Oak Logic is Oak Solutions’ new package designed to allow logic
circuits to be designed and tested on screen before being made. When you
have created your circuits with logic gates, inputs and outputs plus
astables and indicator lamps, you can watch the logic states change and
generate a truth table. Oak Logic is £99.95 + carriage + VAT from Oak
Solutions or £110 through Archive.
6.11
•    OakPCB − The latest version of Oak Solutions’ PCB and schematic design
software supports up to four-layer boards plus solder mask and drilling
layers, it allows tracks to intelligently attach themselves to pads, it
uses outline fonts and allows import and export of drawfiles. The new
version of WorraCAD is £99.95 + carriage + VAT from Oak Solutions or
£110 through Archive.
6.11
•    Oak Recorder 2 − Oak Solutions have upgraded their Oak Recorder. The
new version includes the SoundLab software sold separately for users of
the old Oak Recorder for £19.95 +p&p +VAT (£22 through Archive). The
other two improvements are a better microphone and the fact that the
microphone is plugged into a socket so that other sound sources can plug
into the interface ready for sampling. The price of Oak Recorder II is
£39.95 + carriage +VAT or £48 through Archive.
6.11
•    PhotoLib − Matt Black are now selling the PhotoLib CD which contains
over 4,000 colour photographs in compressed J-PEG format. The CD
contains pictures with a whole range of different themes and there are
also CDs of pictures on individual themes. PhotoLib CD costs £299 from
Matt Black (no VAT).
6.11
•    Pocket Book/Series 3 goodies − There is now a wealth of programs and
add-ons available for the Pocket Book and Psion 3 computers. Some of
these applications have been around for some months (bear in mind that
the Series 3 has been around for some two or three years now). Useful
books include First Steps in Programming the Psion Series 3, Serious
Programming on the Psion Series 3, Introduction to Using the Psion
Series 3 and Graphics Programming on the Psion Series 3. Software
includes a Spell Checker & Thesaurus (OK, so the Spell Checker isn’t
much use, but this includes a 100,000 word dictionary and 660,000
synonym thesaurus!), the Berlitz Interpreter which translates over
28,000 words between English, French, Spanish, German and Italian,
Personal Accounts & Expenses, Professional Finance (interest rates, IRR,
depreciation) and Finance Pack 3, Psion Chess, Games Pack 1 (seven
arcade games), Games Pack 2 (six strategy games), Games Pack 3 (five
assorted games), Series 3 Tools (an excellent suite of utilities to help
manage your computer) and Time Base Solo which helps to schedule your
time. Finally, there is an excellent black aluminium desk stand which
tilts the Pocket Book/Series 3 forward making the screen easier to read
and the keyboard more accessible. Please contact us for prices and
further details. Also note that, as yet, it is not guaranteed that all
of these programs will work on the Pocket Book.
6.11
• Pocket Book Assistants − A company called Portable Software have
produced a range of software ‘assistants’ to the Series 3 range: Timing
Assistant helps you plan, time, record and enjoy how your time is spent
(their sales pitch, not mine!); Banking Assistant puts you in control of
your business, private or international cash flows; Text Assistant lets
you assemble documents without lots of typing (basically, it consists of
a suite of libraries of predefined styles and sentences to allow you to
build up letters and documents easily); Sales Assistant is a small
business or mobile trader’s dream − order processing and customer care
on a Pocket Book! Finally, there is Data Assistant which is provided
with all of the previous assistants, except Banking Assistant. This is a
suite of utilities to extend the built-in data filing system. Again,
contact us for further details and prices.
6.11
•    Primary Nature is an educational package from Oak Solutions aimed at
Key Stage 2 Science covering hedgerows, pond life and food chains. It
costs £45 + p&p +VAT from Oak Solutions.
6.11
•    ProSheet − Silicon Vision have produced an affordable spreadsheet
aimed at education. ProSheet has all the standard spreadsheet functions
plus statistics, trig and Boolean functions. It has a hot-linked
graphing facility with 3D graphs with rotate and tilt options. Other
features include fixed and FP numerics, calculator pad and outline font
support even on an individual cell basis. It works on a 1Mb machine.
ProSheet costs £39.95 +VAT or £44 through Archive. At last, it looks as
if we have an economically priced, full-function spreadsheet.
6.11
•    S-Base Developer Plus is now available, as is S-Net Server. S-Base
Developer Plus (£299 +VAT or £325 through Archive) allows the user to
develop and compile applications into stand-alone programs which then do
not require S-Base. They can run as single user applications or, when
loaded into S-Net, can be served to multiple users over a network. S-Net
licences are available for business (£600 +VAT or £650 through Archive)
and education (£299 +VAT or £325 through Archive).
6.11
•    Sleuth, Risc Developments’ economy OCR program should be available by
the time you read this. The program is ready but the packaging isn’t
quite finished − it should be finished by the end of July. The cost is
£49 +VAT + £2 carriage from Risc Developments. (Sleuth was previewed in
May Acorn User and commented on in Archive 6.8 p15 and 6.9 p50. We hope
to have a full review as soon as it is available.)
6.11
•    Special needs keyboard − Special Access Systems have produced an
expanded keyboard for computer users with poor motor control. The
keyboard has a nylon-coated steel case which acts as a keyguard. It has
a built-in LCD display which enables the user to program the keyboard’s
special functions including key delays, sound effects and ‘sticky keys’
for producing those awkward key combinations which we so easily take for
granted, e.g. <shift-alt-,> for a ‘×’ character. The keyboard costs £475
+ p&p + VAT from Special Access Systems.
6.11
•    Turbo Drivers (RISC OS 3.1) − CC have just sent us the first fully
RISC OS 3.1 compatible Turbo Driver. This is the Canon driver which will
cope with BJ10, BJ20, BJ200, BJ230, BJ300, BJ330 and BJC800. (At the
time of writing, the HP drivers are still not ready − I said they were
last month − sorry to mislead you. I will let you know when they are
ready. There seem to be one or two technical problems.)
6.11
•    User / Analogue / Econet interface − Risc Developments have produced a
card that provides a user port and an analogue port on A3000/4000
machines. The cost is £44.95 +VAT. It has an optional Econet interface
which brings the price to £79.95 +VAT. This means that, in an A3020 or
an A4000, a standard Ethernet interface could be added to the machine
thus making it into a gateway between the two network standards. There
is an A5000 version of this board but, because of lack of space on the
backplate, the Econet is provided as a cable to connect to the existing
Econet connector. The prices are the same as for the A3000 versions.
Both interfaces include a boot ROM for AUN so that there is no need to
run AUN up from disc at switch-on.
6.11
•    Video Splitter − If anyone wants to have more than one monitor running
on an Archimedes computer then a company called Scene Double have just
the thing for you. These splitters, which are UK manufactured, have a
very wide bandwidth and will easily cope with the output even from a
colour card. It is an external box with its own power supply and has a
cable to link into the back of the computer. It has outputs which can
then feed into four different monitors or other video devices. We have
had one in the office to try and it works fine. The Scene Double
splitter costs £299 +VAT or £325 through Archive.
6.11
•    Visual Backup is Dabhand Computing’s hard disc backup program. It aims
to make the backup process as interactive as possible, most operations
being based around a directory tree viewer. Visual Backup costs £49.95
inclusive from Dabhand Computing or £46 through Archive.
6.11
•    WordBank − Topologika have released an application which lets you
‘collect’ words, and their meanings, in English, Welsh, French or
German. You can display your word sets alongside your story in your own
WP or DTP application, click on a word and it is inserted into your
story. Wordbank costs £25 +VAT + p&p from Topologika or £30 through
Archive.
6.11
•    WorraCAD upgrade − Oak Solutions have updated WorraCAD in various ways
including giving it a new icon-based user interface and also support for
ellipses. It maintains it high accuracy, its ability to produce drawings
larger than A0 and can export in Draw format. The new version of
WorraCAD is £99.95 + carriage + VAT from Oak Solutions or £110 through
Archive.
6.11