Archive Magazine CD 1995/Archive Magazine CD 1995.iso/text/products/volume_08/issue_03

Text File | 1995-02-16 | 26KB | 467 lines

•  10 out of 10 Driving Test − Learn, revise or test your knowledge of
the essential facts of driving with this program from 4th Dimension.
There are six categories of trivia questions about road signs and
driving knowledge or you can try the thousands of questions in the suite
without using the games. 10 out of 10 Driving Test costs £25.95
inclusive from 4th Dimension or £24 through Archive.
8.3
•  24-Bit Digitiser − Irlam instruments have produced a very high
quality multimedia capture tool − the 24i16 offers 24-bit image capture
and 16-bit sound sampling. The board is available for £359 +VAT with a
512Kb framestore or £399 +VAT with a full 1Mb framestore.
8.3
•  105Mb SCSI SyQuest removable drives − One of our suppliers is
currently over-stocked on these drives and the cartridges and is selling
them off until his stock levels are somewhat reduced. We can sell the
105Mb SCSI internals for £290 (normally £370), the external 105Mb drives
for £350 (normally £450) and the spare cartridges are currently £55 each
(normally £70). This applies while his stocks last, so please ring if
you are interested in one. All prices are inclusive of VAT, carriage and
fitting kit (where necessary) and each drive includes one cartridge.
8.3
•  270Mb SCSI SyQuest removable drives − We have just found a new
supplier of 270Mb SyQuest drives who is giving us better prices. We can
now sell the 270Mb SCSI internals for £420 (was £490) including one
cartridge, the external 270Mb drives for £490 (was £550) and the spare
cartridges are currently £70 each (was £90). All prices are inclusive of
VAT, carriage and fitting kit (where necessary) and each drive includes
one cartridge.
8.3
•  ABC of Art is a set of clipart drawn using Artworks and available in
Artworks or Draw format. The series has reached H, i.e. there are eight
so far and there will be new discs released roughly every two months.
The price of each disc is £6 inclusive from ABC Art.
8.3
•  ACB15/25 second slices − Owners of single slice Risc PCs will be
pleased to hear that we have second case slices available from stock at
£116 each. As well as the actual case slice, you get the extra length
fitting pins, a four-way backplane and a brand new power supply to
increase the loading capacity of your computer. This means that you will
then be able to fit up to four expansion cards, an extra 5¼“ storage
unit − such as a CD-ROM drive − and an extra 3½” storage unit such as a
105 Mb or 270 Mb removable drive unit. (The 105Mb SCSI internals are on
special offer at the moment at £290 including one cartridge, and the
spare cartridges are currently £55 each − see above.)
8.3
•  Apple FS from Oregan allows Apple Macintosh floppy discs to be read
from and written to on an Acorn computer. Both high and low density
floppy formats are supported although not the original variable-speed
floppy format and not, as yet, SCSI hard drives. AppleFS costs £59.95
inc VAT from Oregan Developments.
8.3
•  Aries – a new games compendium from Gamesware, including Hamsters
(arcade adventure), Quizmaster (quiz!), Blowpipe (arcade/shoot ’em up)
and Square Route (puzzle), giving a range of game types. The price is
£29.95 from Gamesware or £28 through Archive.
8.3
•  Archive mousemat − The new mousemats are here! I hope that some of
you will have been able to pick one up at Acorn World 94 but, if not,
they are available from NCS for £5 each. They have antistatic plastic
tops with non-slip rubber base. The actual design of the mat is shown
overleaf.
8.3
Reports from the thousands of Archive subscribers who got a new one are
generally good. Some say it makes their mouse go faster although I can’t
quite see how that can be. Some, however, say that their mouse slips on
these mats so, be warned, if your mouse is one of those with a
plasticised (cream-coloured) ball, these mats are not for you!
(Alternatively, you could buy one and use it with one of the new Acorn
mice that we still have in stock at £18 each!)
8.3
•  Artworks Clip-Art CD 2 Computer concepts have released the second
clipart collection containing the best entries from their Artworks
competition. In addition to Artworks files, there are some 24-bit
sprites and TIFF images. The Clip-Art CD 2 costs £19 +VAT from CC.
8.3
•  Back trouble? − Anyone who has back trouble and is doing a reasonable
amount of computer work should consider buying a decent chair. For over
six years now, I have been using a Stokke Wing chair (see below) − two,
in fact − one in the office and one at home. I’m always singing their
praises to people who visit me. If I ever have to use a conventional
office chair for any length of time, I get back-ache whereas I can (and
do) sit on my Wings (so to speak!) for hours on end without tiring.
8.3
“If they are so good, why don’t you sell them?” someone said to me a
year or so ago. Why indeed?! I have made an arrangement with an importer
(they are Scandinavian chairs as you might guess!) and I can sell them
for £320 inclusive. They have a five-caster base so you can move around
easily and a gas-lift mechanism so that you can adjust the height for
the best position relative to your monitor and keyboard. The chairs are
extremely robust and the material with which they are covered is very
good quality. The one I use in the office is just beginning to wear a
bit thin on one side of the knee-pad after over four years of constant
use.
8.3
I’m so confident that you will be pleased with them that I will give you
a full refund if you buy one and find you don’t like it. You may feel
that £320 is a lot of money for a chair but, as far as I am concerned,
it is a kind of insurance policy − keeping my back in good condition −
and I’m prepared to pay for that. From personal experience, I can say
that they are very long-lasting but in any case, they come with a five-
year guarantee (although this does not apply to the covering material).
8.3
The chairs have been improved since the pictures opposite were taken.
They now have an adjustment of the knee-pad to allow for different leg
lengths!
8.3
The Wing chairs come in natural beech, rosewood or black and the covers
are available in black, navy blue, red, beige, wine, brown, charcoal or
dark grey.
8.3
(The money-back guarantee is a genuine offer. In fact, I have one that
has come back! It’s rosewood with beige covers and, if anyone is
interested, I can offer it at £290 as I cannot now say that it is brand
new. Ring the NCS office if you are interested.)
8.3
•  Blinds − Quantum Software have released their pinboard-type
application, Blinds, which allows users to group applications, files,
directories etc in a convenient way on blinds of any size, which can be
brought up at the click of a mouse button. The blinds can also be set to
appear whenever an application is run, and the icons on the blinds can
be given long names rather than just file names. Blinds costs £19.95 (no
VAT) from Quantum or £20 inclusive through Archive.
8.3
•  Bubble Help − David Pilling has an alternative to Acorn’s interactive
help application, !Help. Bubble Help 2 provides help actually at the
mouse pointer rather than in a window somewhere on the screen (if you
can remember where you put it!) and uses outline fonts to make it easier
to read. What is more, it only costs £5 inclusive, direct from David
Pilling.
8.3
•  Caxton Press from Newman College is a newspaper simulation for
primary children. It is designed to be bright, colourful and enjoyable
to use and yet simple enough for young children to understand quickly.
It allows them to lay out and edit single A4 pages of material in
newspaper format. Caxton Press is a RISC OS compatible application
costing £30 +VAT from Newman Software Ltd and this includes full site
and network licence, i.e. it can be used anywhere on a single school
site.
8.3
•  CD-ROM Drives from Cumana − In a single stroke, Cumana have extended,
renamed and simplified the choice of their CD-ROM drive products. The
comprehensive range now consists of the following (all prices are ex
VAT):
8.3
Oscar − Parallel port driven dual-speed, drawer-loading drive for
computers with a bi-directional parallel port. Cumana supply these for
£229.
8.3
Bravo − Dual-speed, drawer-loading available with either parallel port
or SLCD (podule or mini-podule) interface and providing audio mixing
with the computer’s sound. £299.
8.3
Victor − High performance SCSI drives, with a choice of drives from
dual-speed drawer-loading (£299) through caddie-loading (£399) up to
magazine-loading, quad-speed autochangers (£499 to £1995) and 6 drive
units (£1499 to £1999).
8.3
Indigo − The 300iA drive which is driven by the Risc PCs built-in IDE
interface and offers audio mixing with the Risc PC’s sound. (£249 or
£199 without audio mixing)
8.3
NCS stock the Indigo audio drive for £290 inclusive and a selection of
the other drives. See the price list for details.
8.3
•  EasyFont 3 is Fabis Computing’s improved font management system. New
features include a new user interface, a font filing system and font
compression (up to 40%). Easy Font 3 costs £35 inc VAT (£34 through
Archive) or £10 inc VAT to owners of Easy Font 2 from Fabis.
8.3
•  Educational CD-ROM software − Academy Television have produced
“Science II: Materials”, “Environment II: Land & Air” and “World War II:
Global Conflict” on CD-ROM. Each is £130 +VAT from Academy Television.
8.3
•  Education CD-ROM titles − Nelson Multimedia, a new division of school
book publishers Thomas Nelson, have launched a range of CD-ROM learning
and resource titles covering a wide cross-section of the curriculum. The
Science titles include Elements, Materials, The Environment, Inventors
and British Birds. Humanities CDs include Aspects of Religion, The
Physical World, World War II. French and Spanish language packs are
available and there are primary resources including a reading scheme and
an introduction to history. Packs vary in price from £99 +VAT to £150
+VAT with some resource CDs at £35 +VAT. Full details and prices from
Nelson Multimedia.
8.3
•  E-Type2 – For the racers among you, Fourth Dimension have released a
sequel to the original E-Type, which now features better graphics and a
two-player option. You now have to contend with police speed traps and
bad weather to complete your race. For those of you who get bored with
driving all day, you can at least switch to the pursuit track, arming
your car(s) with lasers and oil spills. When you get bored with the six
tracks provided, you can use the included track generator to add your
own courses. The game costs £34.95 from Fourth Dimension or £33 through
Archive.
8.3
•  Formula Two Thousand (FTT) is a high speed 3D futuristic racing game
new from TBA software. The speed is quite terrifying and this is their
first game to show off their TAG 3D game engine. FTT costs £24.99 inc
VAT from TBA or £24 through Archive.
8.3
•  Formulix is Computer Concepts’ successor to Equasor. It allows simple
construction and editing of complex formulae for use within documents in
Impression or other word processing/DTP programs. Formulix supports OLE,
so an embedded formula can be edited within Style, Publisher or other
OLE compliant software. Formulix costs £49 +VAT from CC or £55 through
Archive.
8.3
•  Grasshopper is a RISC OS compliant “introductory” spreadsheet from
Newman College. Although it is described as introductory, it never-the-
less looks quite sophisticated − for instance, it has 20 mathematical
functions and allows multiple selections of areas. Grasshopper costs £30
+VAT from Newman Software Ltd and this includes full site and network
licence, i.e. it can be used anywhere on a single school site.
8.3
•  IGLib Fortran graphics libraries for Intelligent Interfaces’ Fortran
77 users. The libraries provide access to the extra graphics
capabilities of the Risc PC. IGLib is available from Intelligent
Interfaces and costs £30 inc VAT +£4 p&p.
8.3
•  Impression Publisher Plus − Computer Concepts have released an
extended version of Publisher providing extra features which may be
needed by people involved in professional use of the Acorn computers for
publishing. These features include support for named colours (which can
be imported from Artworks) and the OPI standard, allowing documents
containing graphics to be kept to more practical sizes whilst retaining
the quality at the image setting stage. Publisher Plus also supports
Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) and Desktop Colour Separation (DCS) file
formats. It costs £299 +VAT (£330 through Archive) or £130 +VAT for
registered Publisher users from CC.
8.3
•  Language programs − Primrose Publishing have a clever system for use
with foreign languages. The idea is that you have a database of
sentences provided for you that are written correctly in whatever
language or languages the pack uses (over 30 languages are covered to
varying degrees). You select your sentence, it is typed automatically
into your WP or DTP application and you can then edit it in whatever way
you wish. The Tick-Tack range includes programs for beginners (Junior
Pen-Friend), for general use (Pen-Friend), for business use and for
travel and tourism. There is even one for job-hunting called “Tick-Tack
CV”! Prices start at £75 +VAT for Junior Pen-Friend in a single language
plus English to £401 +VAT for Travel/Tourism Tick-Tack in a combined
pack with English/French/German/Spanish & Italian. Site licences are
double the single-user prices.
8.3
(I would like to get a couple of reviews done as these sound very
interesting. I therefore need a language teacher to assess them from an
educational standpoint and a “keen beginner” who has perhaps done a bit
of language learning and wants to take it further. The review could then
include the views of the two people. Any offers, anyone? Ed.)
8.3
•  Lemmings/Oh No! More Lemmings – Not really a new game, but the Risc
PC version is now available for £29.95 direct from Krisalis, or £29
through Archive. It contains both games in one pack, and allows you to
play them on the RISC OS desktop, both at the same time if you find them
too easy individually!
8.3
•  Look! Hear! Talking Topics for Infants, Volume One is from Sherston
Software who have built upon their Talking Stories series with this
collection of non-fiction titles. The topics include The Body,
Dinosaurs, Homes, Land Transport, Pets and The Seashore. Each topic has
animated illustrations with sound effects and talking text that responds
to the children’s actions. Activity cards are provided for each topic.
The complete Volume One of the Look! Hear! Talking Topics is available
from Sherston for £59.75 +VAT (£67 through Archive) or £11.95 +VAT for
individual topics from Sherston.
8.3
•  Map Importer – This allows the conversion of Ordnance Survey Digital
Map Data into Drawfiles ready for use in a large number of RISC OS
applications. During conversion, alterations can be made, to remove
railways, for example. The program is only available to educational
establishments, and is priced at £29.95 for a single user copy, £45 for
a primary site licence, or £120 for a secondary site licence. Prices
exclude VAT and p&p.
8.3
A copyright licence is required for schools who are not covered by the
Local Authority Service Level Agreement. Ordinance Survey Digital Map
Data can be obtained under licence from their Digital Sales Department
(01703-792773).
8.3
•  Movie Magic − This MPEG decompression card has been developed by Wild
Vision as part of the Online Media Set-Top Box project. The card gives
the facility for decompression very high quality video images (much
better than VHS cassette technology) from CD-ROM in real time. The
number of film titles currently available on CD-ROM format is currently
small and is limited to the obvious money-makers, but this should
increase. Movie Magic costs £249 +VAT from Computer Concepts or £285
through Archive.
8.3
•  Network Solutions is a new company that has been established to take
over Oak Solutions’ networking products and services. Network Solutions
will develop Oak’s ClassNet software and provide a support service for
Oak’s existing network customers. Network Solutions are at 2 The
Borough, Aldreth, Haddenham, Ely, Cambs CB6 3PJ. Phone or fax 01954-
212083.
8.3
•  News Bulletin from Newman College is a RISC OS compatible application
which allows you to produce electronic ‘magazines’ consisting of sets of
pages of text which can be displayed in sequence or called up as
required. News Bulletin costs £25 +VAT from Newman Software Ltd and this
includes full site and network licence i.e. it can be used anywhere on a
single school site.
8.3
•  Oxford Reading Tree − Stage 3 Talking Stories − Sherston Software
have extended their Oxford Reading Tree Stories to Stage 3. The pack
contains six new stories using the Talking Stories format successfully
used by Sherston in their Naughty Stories and Stage 2 Oxford Reading
Tree products. Stage 3 Talking Stories costs £39.95 +VAT for a single
user version or £45 through Archive.
8.3
•  PaperSoft is a new software house providing a range of templates for
pre-printed stationary. Each template has a predefined page with frames
set up for common business forms and documents. Templates are also
available for fun/personal documents. Each pack includes a set of pre-
printed papers and the templates in Impression or Artworks format.
Ovation and First Page/Pendown formats will follow. The business papers
pack costs £29.95 inc VAT. Fun and label packs are available at between
£5.95 and £14.95 from PaperSoft.
8.3
•  Playdays – Based on the popular BBC TV series, it includes 13
educational games, involving counting, spelling, reading, logic, memory,
coordination, and reasoning. It features the favourite characters from
the series and comes with a teachers/parents pack. The cost is £25.99
from Skillsware/Gamesware or £25 through Archive.
8.3
•  Picture Builder from Newman College is an art package for primary
children − from reception upwards. It allows them to create pictures
using shapes that can be coloured, stretched, rotated, reflected, etc.
The program is not RISC OS compatible, i.e. there is no exit to the
desktop. Picture Builder costs £20 +VAT from Newman Software Ltd and
this includes full site and network licence i.e. it can be used anywhere
on a single school site.
8.3
•  PIMS – Longman Logotron’s popular Primary Information Management
System is now available as a stand-alone package − previously it has
only been possible to purchase it with the required hardware. It is an
integrated package, running on a single Acorn Computer, to handle pupil
and staff records, budgeting and accounts, maintenance, insurance and
inventory. An Evaluation Pack is available, directly from Longman
Logotron, for £20 +VAT, which is redeemable against the full version.
The full version costs £399 +VAT and, if purchased before BETT ’95, will
include free maintenance until January 1996. Minimum requirements are
RISC OS 3, 4Mb, and a hard drive.
8.3
•  RiscBasic, the Basic compiler from Silicon Vision has been upgraded
to version 3.15. New features include the FPA instruction set, on-line
hints & tips and better optimisation all round. RiscBasic costs £79.95
+£3 p&p +VAT or £92 through Archive. Upgrades for existing users are
available from Silicon Vision.
8.3
•  RISC OS PRM Volume 5 − For Risc PC owners or others interested in the
inner workings of RISC OS 3.5, Acorn have now released the extra
information as a fifth volume of the PRMs. Volume 5 costs £29.95 or £30
through Archive including p&p.
8.3
•  SimCity 2000 – The follow up game to SimCity offers many more
features, and improved graphics. You now get a isometric 3D view rather
than a plan view and there are far more building types. As well as
electricity you have to keep water supplies connected and maintain
underground connections. In stead of just counting your votes, you also
receive reports from your officials and can even read the local papers.
Unlike the earlier game, you can no longer build a nuclear power plant
in 1930, but have to wait until 1957 and its ‘invention’, adding more to
the game. The Risc PC version is available now at £39.95 from Krisalis,
or £38 through Archive. The version for earlier machines costs £33
through Archive.
8.3
•  Simon the Sorcerer – This is a new (8Mb!) graphical adventure game
from Gamesware, (released last year on the PC platform), and it is
something that has been missing from the Acorn games market. Rather than
being an arcade adventure, this game uses a simple point and click
interface to explore rooms, pick up items and so on. There is a distinct
humour throughout the game − various nursery rhymes crop up in
unexpected, and subtly different ways, and talking with the other
characters is always entertaining. The price is £39.95 from Gamesware,
or £38 through Archive.
8.3
•  SmartCD+ – The SmartCD package has now been released by the ARM Club.
It interfaces with CDFS to offer full control over your Audio CDs. It
will remember the title and tracks on each CD, automatically detecting
which one is in the drive, and your preferred playlist. It can also
split tracks across a cassette for use in the car or personal stereo,
and will even generate the cassette inlays. The price is £10, fully
inclusive, from the ARM Club.
8.3
•  StarFighter 3000 from FedNet Software is an up-to-date “Chocks Away”
type program providing you with 108 missions to fly, weapons to buy and
credits to win. Starfighter 3000 costs £29.95 from Fednet Software or
£29 through Archive. (See the review on page 25.)
8.3
•  TalkWrite − This is described by its supplier, Resource, as “the
friendly wordprocessor”. It has been designed for ease of use and is
usable from reception class up to year 9 as well as for special needs
use. It is fully RISC OS compliant, has a toolbar, a 50,000 word
dictionary and a wordlist from which users can select words to put into
their text. As the name implies, it also has the ability to speak as you
type or speak letters, words or sentences. TalkWrite costs £59.95 +VAT
from Resource for a single user (£67 through Archive), £149.95 +VAT for
a primary licence and £240 +VAT for a secondary licence.
8.3
•  TV Tuner is a podule from Wild Vision/Computer Concepts allowing TV
signals to be received. With the use of a digitiser card, TV pictures
can be received and displayed on the desktop. The TV Tuner is available
with Teletext software which provides the ability to capture and store
the data displayed across several pages. The TV Tuner is £89 +VAT or
£159 +VAT with the Teletext software from Computer Concepts.
8.3
•  TypeTutor – This is a new typing tutor from the ARM Club, which
includes support for the Risc PC keyboard as well as the standard
Archimedes layout. Windows showing the keyboard, next key to press,
which fingers to use, and a scoreboard can each be optionally displayed
on screen. The manual includes elementary exercises, and exercise files
are also included. The price is £10, fully inclusive from the ARM Club.
8.3
•  Utility Discs – The ARM Club’s utility discs have been updated to
make them fully compatible with the Risc PC. Each disc costs £5, or if
you need an upgrade send back your original disc, without packaging or
manual together with 50p for postage. Desktop Utilities 1: Command
control for desktop use of command line utilities, and workspace for
four independent desktop areas, each with its own mode and palette.
Desktop Utilities 2: GraphTask for task windows with graphical support,
FreeMap for analysing the free space on a disc, WindOpen for
demonstrating desktop applications, and PrintCtrl for flexible printer
control. Graphical Utilities: Broadcast display images at Broadcast
resolution for a TV or CGA monitor, and interlaces on multiscan
monitors. CTEnhance provides better dithering and Mirror is an aid for
drawing symmetrical drawing. Finally, Programmers’ Utilities: CPU load
monitor, SWI statistics application, along with a collection of useful
modules and utilities.
8.3
•  Versatile is a 2D pattern generator allowing the construction of a
wide variety of patterns and tessellations based on mathematical
principles. Versatile costs £45 +VAT or £180 +VAT for a site licence
from Oak Solutions.
8.3
•  Voyage of Discovery − Sherston Software have produced a science
adventure program for 9 to 13 year-olds. The year is 2055 and the
mission is to deliver a package from earth to the captain of the
Spaceship Discovery within three days somewhere out in deep space. (Next
day delivery is only guaranteed this side of Jupiter apparently, so
three days is quite normal!) Children taking on the challenge will meet
various problems and puzzles in which they will have to deal with many
aspects of electricity and magnetism including magnets, compasses,
simple circuits, fuses, circuit diagrams, electromagnets and motors.
Voyage of Discovery is by Mark Vanstone, of ArcVenture fame and costs
£31.95 +VAT from Sherston Software or £36 through Archive.
8.3
•  VTX2000 Sound Card − VTI (previously known as Vertical Twist) have
launched a high quality sound card containing the Kurtzweil chip set as
used in Kurtzweil’s keyboard instruments. These chips provide 700 voices
providing a versatile sound module inside your Acorn. The card also
provides an Acorn compliant Midi interface and is General Midi
compatible. The Kurzweil chips are 32 voice polyphonic and include DSP
for effects and post-processing. The sound is 16-bit, 44.1kHz, and
output in high quality stereo. The card costs £399 +VAT from VTI.
8.3
•  WimpGEN − Silicon Vision’s application-authoring package has reached
version 2.06. The new version has a range of new features but the price
remains at £79.95 + £3 p&p +VAT from Silicon Vision or £93 through
Archive.
8.3
•  Wolfenstein 3D – This new game from Powerslave Software was the
forerunner of Doom/Doom II which have taken the PC games world by storm.
Fast texture-mapped graphics and lots of atmosphere as you explore a
Nazi castle, collecting enough firepower to start your own Guns ’r’ Us
by the end – be warned it is not a game for the squeamish! The price is
£29.95 from Powerslave or £29 through Archive.
8.3